GIFT   OF 
Marshall  C.   Cheney 


A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY 


BY  LAURENTINE  HAMILTON 

OAKLAND,   CALIFORNIA 


"Ever  the  words  of  God  resound; 
But  the  porches  of  man's  ear 
Seldom,  in  this  low  life's  round/ 
Are  unsealed,  that  he  may  hear." 

—EMERSON. 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

ISSUED  FOR  THE  AUTHOR  BY  DEWEY  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS 

1881 


0° 

)fc  ' 

COPYRIGHT,  1881. 


BR 


Contents. 


PAGE 

Introduction 5 

I.    The  Return  to  Faith 13 

II.    The  Word  of  God  Unbound 30 

III.  Law  in  the  Kingdom,  of  God 52 

IV.  A  Progressive  Creation  the  Type  of  a  Progressive  Rev- 

elation   66 

V.    The  Human  Nature  of  Jesus 83 

VI.    The  Divinity  of  Jesus 102 

VII.    The  New  Birth 115 

VIII.    The  Atonement 128 

IX.    Repentance  and  Forgiveness 141 

X.    The  Holy  Spirit 154 

XI.    The  Resurrection 169 

XII.    The  Judgment  Day.. 182 

XIII.  The  Real  Point  at  Issue  between  Sacred  and  Secular 

Science 197 

XIV.  Physical  Man  the  Final  Term  of  Material  Evolution . .  228 

Appendix  A.  —  Is  the  Resurrection  of  the  Body  of  Jesus 
a  Fundamental  Article  of  the  Christian  Faith? 256 

Appendix  B. — Cavour's  Prophecy. — Can  Christianity 
become  the  Universal  Religion? 265 


Introduction. 


"Pele's  hair,"  says  the  Kanaka,  as  he  sees  the  smoke 
and  flame  streaming  from  the  great  chimney  of  Kilauea. 
"  An  eruption  of  lava,"  says  the  scientific  materialist ; 
and  curls  the  lip  at  the  poor  superstition  which  imagines 
a  God  in  the  wonder.  "  As  if  we  did  not  know  how  it  all 
comes  to  pass — chemical  forces  generated  in  the  subter- 
ranean laboratory  of  the  earth  belch  forth  these  rock- 
flames  ;  '  Pele's  hair/  indeed ! "  Which  is  the  nearer  right  ? 
Is  there  no  God  hi  the  case  ?  If  the  atom  originated  the 
forces  that  lift  and  shake  that  feathery  plume  of  rock, 
then  the  materialist  has  the  question.  If  those  forces  came 
forth  from  a  personal  Will,  immediate  or  remote,  then  the 
Kanaka  is  nearer  the  right  in  both  fact  and  feeling. 
This  raises  at  once  the  vital  question  of  religion  :  Is  there 
a  Personal  God  ?  The  materialist  says  no.  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth assumes  the  affirmative,  nowhere  attempting  its 
demonstration.  The  agnostic  (whose  philosophy  is  just 
now  the  fashion)  says  we  can  know  nothing  positive  of 
an  infinite  Personality.  Confused  with  this  Babel  of 
voices,  distressed  with  conscious  vagueness  in  the  idea  of 
God,  not  yet  wise  enough  to  see  that  our  limited  powers 
must  be  content  with  sufficient  evidence  that  God  is,  while 
they  can  know  but  in  part,  and  very  limited  part,  what 
He  is,  many  a  thoughtful  mind  wavers  between  conflict- 


6  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

ing  opinions,  and  gets  neither  comfort  nor  strength  for 
right  living,  from  any  faith.  The  need  is  of  some  idea  of 
God  that  puts  the  mind  in  the  right  practical  attitude  to- 
ward Him.  The  Kanaka  feels  his  relation  to  a  personal 
God,  and  reasons  no  further.  The  materialist  speculates 
himself  out  of  all  sense  of  such  relation,  and  feels  only 
the  properties  of  matter  in  the  cold  touch  of  nature.  His 
only  felt  relation  to  Heaven  is  gravitation  and  starlight. 
The  Kanaka  asks  help  of  God.  The  materialist  seeks  to 
adjust"  himself  to  impersonal  law  and  inexorable  force. 
But  the  Kanaka  looks  for  special  interventions  of  the 
Deity  which  never  come.  He  imagines  that  God  will 
turn  aside  from  the  course  of  nature  to  smite  him  with  a 
thunderbolt  if  he  sins,  or  send  supernatural  poe  in  answer 
to  his  prayer,  or  wait  on  his  material  wants  in  like  ways. 
This  is  a  false  expectation.  Its  influence  is  bad.  It 
makes  him  a  slave  to  fear,  or  leads  to  disappointment, 
discontent,  instability,  and  quarrel  with  nature  and  God. 
Growing  reason  corrects  the  superstition.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  materialist,  looking  upon  nature  as  Spiritless 
and  impersonal,  feels  no  appeal  from  it,  as  the  voice  of 
God,  to  conscience,  aspiration,  hope  or  love  ;  he  misses  the 
highest  influences  that  have  made  history  heroic,  and 
souls  grand.  A  sense  of  dependence  and  heart  -  relations 
teaches  the  world  better. 

We  want  a  faith  that  corrects  the  errors  of  each  and 
combines  the  good  of  both  —  a  faith  that  purifies  by  a 
sense  of  personal  responsibility  to  God,  and  warms  with 
personal  trust  and  love,  and  still  holds  solidly  to  the  or- 
der of  nature.  Until  we  get  such  a  faith,  the  alterna- 
tive will  be  Kanaka  piety,  or  materialistic  indifference 
and  pessimism.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  the  former  in 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

the  Christian  Church  of  to-day ;   perhaps  an  equal  amount 
of  the  latter  in  the  circles  of  science. 

The  discussions  of  this  book*  aim  to  aid,  as  far  as  they 
may,  the  bringing  in  of  the  needed  faith.  They  inter- 
pret Jesus  and  his  Word,  not  as  a  miracle  or  afterthought 
of  God,  thrust  into  the  order  of  the  world,  but  as  the 
summit  and  crown  of  evolution,  an  integral  and  insepa- 
rable part  of  the  whole,  the  fullness  of  the  divine  mani- 
festation, which  was  unfolding,  progressively,  from  the 
first  globing  of  the  star  -  mist,  or  whatever  element  it 
was,  that  formed  our  earth.  It  is  my  conviction  that 
the  course  qf  moral  and  spiritual  evolution  that  places 
Jesus  at  the  head  of  the  human  race,  can  be  inductively 
traced,  and  with  as  much  clearness,  for  minds  capable  of 
discerning  that  kind  of  evidence,  as  that  course  of  phys- 
ical evolution  which  places  man  at  the  head  of  the  ani- 
mal kingdom.  In  this  may  we  not  yet  find  a  truly  sci- 
entific basis  for  the  Christian  faith — one  that  will  not 
only  command  the  respect,  but  compel  the  assent  of  the 
scientific  and  philosophic  mind?-f-  It  may  be  a  shock  to 
some  deep-rooted  prejudices ;  it  may  call  for  the  recon- 
struction of  dogmatic  conceptions  which  have  been  sup- 

*  These  discussions,  save  the  Appendix  and  last  two  articles,  were  revised 
carefully  from  sermons  delivered  in  the  pulpit  of  the  Independent  Church, 
Oakland,  and  first  printed  in  a  local  paper,  issued  only  for  the  society  of  that 
Church.  Some  local  references  are  left  to  stand  in  them  because  I  have  be- 
lieved that  they  illustrate  conditions  of  society  that  are  nearly  universal.  The 
subjects  follow  each  other  in  an  order  that  aims  at  natural  succession  and 
something  more  of  unity  and  completeness  than  would  be  possible  in  a  vol- 
ume of  miscellaneous  discourses. 

I  owe  grateful  acknowledgments  to  Mr.  A.  T.  Dewey,  senior  member  of 
the  firm  that  publishes  the  book,  for  the  generous  liberality  which  offered  to  ste- 
reotype and  preserve  the  weekly  discussions  in  this  more  permanent  form. 

t  The  last  two  articles  of  this  book  are  added  in  the  hope  that  they  will 
serve  to  make  more  clear  the  rational  and  scientific  basis  of  my  interpretation 
of  Christianity.  I  am  aware  that  they  are  insufficient,  and  hope,  with  larger 
opportunity  of  time  and  study,  to  give  a  fuller  statement  of  the  facts  and  laws 
that  form  that  basis. 


8  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

posed  to  involve  the  very  essence  of  Christianity  ;  but,  as 
has  often  happened  before,  it  will  soon  be  seen  that  it  de- 
stroys only  that  which  was  becoming  an  obstacle  to  the 
progress  of  faith. 

Science  has  set  aside  the  idea  of  specific  acts  of  the 
Creator  in  shaping  the  forms  of  vegetable  and  animal  life. 
The  mind  takes  a  new  bent  from  this  fact.  The  corollary 
is  not  yet  accepted,  but  it  is  easy  to  see  whither  the  course 
of  thought  tends.  It  will  not  rest  until  it  has  set  aside 
the  idea  of  special  "Divine  Interpositions,"  "Govern- 
mental Expedients,"  "  Schemes  of  Salvation,"  and  all  sol- 
emn fictions  of  that  sort,  in  God's  ruling  of  the  world. 
Nature  knows  nothing  of  such  ex  post  facto  laws.  Her 
methods  are  God's  methods.  Faith  must  learn  to  see  God 
where  Science  sees  him,  if  at  all,  in  nature,  not  in  eccen- 
tric power  breaking  now  and  then  across  her  laws,  as  a 
disturber  of  her  order.  "  Not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground 
without  your  Father,"  says  Jesus.  Gravitation  is  his  act. 
He  is  in  every  force  of  nature.  The  movement  of  these 
forces  is  the  energy  of  his  will.  One  question  here  com- 
prehends all  particular  questions  :  Are  we  to  think  of 
God  as  putting  forth  special  volitions  ?  (See  pp.  205- 
210).  If  he  does  not  in  creating,  does  he  in  ruling  ?  The 
conception  of  special  Divine  acts  will  not  bear  examina- 
tion. It  will  be  found  an  absurdity  to  reason,  and  prac- 
tically mischievous.  Can  we  think  of  the  Infinite  as  put- 
ting forth  more  energy  or  action  at  one  moment  than 
at  another?  And  whence  spring  the  darkest  doubts  of 
God's  goodness,  and  the  worst  tempers  of  rebellion  against 
his  providence  ?  Is  it  not  from  these  Kanaka  expecta- 
tions of  his  special  interpositions,  awakened  only  to  be 
disappointed?  If  that  be  his  way,  why  does  he  not  come 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

at  our  cry?  We  cannot  help  but  ask.  He  does  not  come. 
We  doubt  his  existence,  or  we  charge  him  with  heartless- 
ness  and  cruelty. 

But,  I  am  asked, "  If  God  answers  not  by  special  act, 
why  pray?"  Strange  question!  Is  God's  action  to  be 
counted  for  naught  because  it  is  uniform?  The  atmos- 
phere does  not  press  into  the  lungs  by  special  volition ; 
why  breathe?  Because  your  act  is  necessary.  God  is 
the  atmosphere  of  spiritual  life  in  which  you  live,  and 
move,  and  have  your  being  ;  prayer  inhales  that  life. 
Your  field  puts  forth  no  special  volition  to  give  you  a 
harvest ;  why  till  the  soil  ?  Because,  though  the  field,  in 
its  richness,  is  the  perpetual  offer  of  a  harvest,  you  must 
accept.  Plowing  and  sowing  is  your  act  of  acceptance. 
God,  the  ever-present  Spirit,  is  the  perpetual  offer  of  Him- 
self to  the  soul.  Prayer  accepts.  And,  to  the  praying 
soul  God  gives  Himself  forever  and  ever.  This  is  all  that 
any  special  act  could  do. 

"  Yes,  in  spiritual  influence  and  fellowship/'  it  will  be 
said  ;  "  but  does  he  never  bestow,  are  we  never  to  ask, 
special  temporal  favors?"  At  two  crises  in  the  life  of 
Jesus,  it  is  recorded  that  angels  came  and  ministered  unto 
him  ;  and  Jesus  himself  asked  on  one  occasion,  "  Thinkest 
thou  that  I  cannot  now  pray  to  my  Father,  and  He  shall 
presently  give  me  more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels?" 
We  at  once  ask  here,  if  it  be  God's  way  to  come  Himself 
in  special  assistance,  why  send  the  angels?  Could  they 
do  better  than  the  Omnipotent?  Yet,  in  these  very  ex- 
amples, it  grows  plain  how  answers  to  prayer,  even  in 
special  gifts,  may  come,  without  supposing  that  the  Infi- 
inite  Will  has  first  been  moved  to  some  new  act.  They 
affirm  the  truth  of  Mediatorial  Ministration.  (See  pp. 


10  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

222-225).  All  races  of  men  have  believed  in  "  minister- 
ing spirits."  Reason  cannot  pronounce  the  belief  a  su- 
perstition unless  it  denies  spiritual  existence  outright. 
What  "  legions,"  wiser  in  God's  will  than  we,  may  watch 
over  human  weakness  and  want,  we  know  not.  We 
may  well  speak  with  reserve  here.  The  laws  and  limits 
of  such  aid  are  to  us  undefined.  Humility  may  hope, 
but  selfishness  may  not  presume  on  indulgence.  Let 
need  ask;  then  let  the  heart  be  content  with  what  is 
given. 

Thinking  of  God  as  never  putting  forth  special  acts,  I 
am  aware,  will  seem  to  many,  at  first,  as  removing  Him 
far  away  from  human  need,  and  the  heart's  trust  and 
love.  On  the  contrary,  I  arn  wholly  persuaded  that, 
when  this  way  of  thinking  of  Him  shall  become  the  habit 
of  faith  (as  in  a  more  reflecting  religion  it  surely  will), 
the  result  will  be  just  the  opposite.  Man  will  learn  to 
look  for  God,  not  into  the  sky,  but — where  only  He  can 
bo  found — into  himself.  He  will  emphasize  that  central 
truth  of  Jesus/s  teaching,  the  Holy  Spirit  abiding  in  the 
disciple  forever.  He  will  never  think  of  God  as  away. 
If,  in  the  material  world,  not  the  lightest  effect  of  gravi- 
tation, not  a  sparrow's  fall,  is  without  Him,  can  there  be 
a  twinge  of  conscience  or  a  throb  of  love  in  the  soul  with- 
out Him  ?  The  same  view  will  also  banish  effectually  the 
fatal  delusion  that  the  natural  penalty  of  sin  will  be  set 
aside  by  the  arbitrary  act  of  God's  pardon — a  delusion 
which  has  made  religious  teachings  prolific  of  immorality. 
It  will  give  at  once  warmth  to  faith,  and  moral  health  to 
character. 

Corresponding  with  the  view  of  Christianity  as  the 
highest  evolution  of  the  religious  idea,  the  Bible  is  re- 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

garded  in  the  following  pages  as  the  history  of  that  evo- 
lution, or,  at  least,  containing  the  chief  materials  for  that 
history.  It  is  the  story  of  the  "  Chosen  Race,"  divinely 
endowed  and  inspired  to  see  and  tell  the  world  man's  re- 
lation to  spiritual  realities;  becoming  the  Priesthood  of 
humanity  for  reasons  which  we  can  no  more  trace  than 
we  can  tell  why  John  Milton  was  a  poet  and  John  Locke 
a  metaphysician,  or  why  Greece  became  the  teacher  of 
the  world  in  art,  and  Rome  in  law.  Springing  from  the 
darkness  of  barbarism,  with  its  crude  notions  of  God,  we 
can  see  the  dawn  and  slow  rising  of  the  divine  idea  that 
broke  at  last,  full-orbed  and  glorious,  upon  the  world  in 
the  Person  and  Word  of  Jesus.  Read  in  this  view,  the 
Bible  becomes  intelligible  and  full  of  quickening  spiritual 
truth  and  power.  Under  the  theories  of  its  inspiration 
which  have  hitherto  prevailed,  it  can  hardly  cease  to  be  a 
perplexity  to  honest  faith,  and  the  armory  from  which 
the  skeptic  will  draw  his  sharpest  weapons. 

We  need  to  distinguish  carefully  what  is  constant  and 
what  is  variable  in  the  progress  of  thought.  The  earth 
is  a  constant  quantity  ;  our  ideas  of  it  vary  more  or  less 
at  every  forward  step  of  scientific  discovery.  The  Bible, 
as  it  lies  in  our  hands,  is  a  constant  quantity  ;  our  inter- 
pretations of  it  change  with  the  growing  light.  God  is 
a  constant  quantity — if  it  be  reverent  so  to  speak  ;  man's 
conceptions  of  what  He  is  vary  with  every  degree  of 
moral  development.  The  scientist  interprets  the  earth  ; 
the  theologian,  God  and  the  Bible.  In  their  search,  each 
aims  to  discover  all  we  may  know  of  what  these  Stabili- 
ties are.  The  nearer  they  approach  the  reality,  the  less 
do  their  thoughts  clash.  As  each  eliminates  errors  from 
his  line  of  investigation,  their  advance  converges.  Have 


12  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

we  not  hope  and  assurance  in  this  that  they  will  yet 
stand  together?  I  have  ventured  to  hope  that  the  view, 
here  presented,  of  the  evolution  of  Christian  truth,  will 
do  something  toward  bringing  the  long  estrangement  and 
strife  between  reason  and  faith,  science  and  religion,  to 
an  end,  and  help  solemnize  their  heaven-ordained  mar- 
riage, so  that  no  man  will  ever  again  put  them  asunder. 


The  Return  to  Faith. 


Isaiah  li:  6:  Lift  up  your  eyes  to  the  heavens,  and  look  upon  the 
earth  beneath,  for  the  heavens  shall  vanish  away  like  smoke,  and  the 
earth  shall  wax  old  like  a  garment,  and  they  that  dwell  therein  shall 
die  in  like  manner;  but  my  salvation  shall  be  forever,  and  my  righteous- 
ness shall  not  be  abolished. 

In  the  spirit  of  these  words,  and  probably  with  their 
declaration  in  mind,  Jesus  says :  "  Heaven  and  earth  shall 
pass  away,  but  my  word  shall  not  pass  away."  Among 
all  the  things  that  change,  there  is  one  thing  that  stands 
unchanged — the  truth  of  morality  and  religion.  He  that 
identifies  himself  with  that  truth  shall  stand  with  it.  He 
shall  change  only  to  higher  realizations  of  its  perfection. 

We  speak  of  the  laws  of  nature  as  immutable;  and 
rightly.  The  stone  tossed  into  the  air  returns  to  the 
earth  by  the  force  of  gravitation.  This  is  a  perpetual 
fact.  It  was  never  otherwise  since  the  earth  existed; 
never  will  be  otherwise  while  the  earth  shall  exist.  The 
law  is  uniform.  But  the  very  objects  to  whose  modes  of 
action  we  refer  when  we  speak  of  the  laws  of  nature,  the 
whole  material  realm  with  which  physical  science  has  to 
do,  are  forever  undergoing  changes  that  must  ultimate  in 
dissolution  and  recombination  in  new  forms  of  existence. 
The  rock  strata  of  the  earth  shall  dissolve  and  turn  into 
star-mist.  The  fossils,  buried  in  them  for  ages,  shall  dis- 
solve with  them.  Nature's  great  historic  library,  the  rec- 


14  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

ord  of  millions  of  changes  and  generations  of  life  upon 
this  earth,  running  through  millions  of  years,  like  the 
famous  collection  of  ancient  Alexandria,  shall  turn  to 
ashes.  The  very  suns  that  we  call  fixed  stars  shall  burn 
out.  Science  unites  with  scripture  in  the  testimony  that 
the  heavens  shall  vanish  away  like  smoke,  and  the  earth 
shall  wax  old  like  a  garment ;  and  God  shall  fold  them  up, 
and  they  shall  be  changed.  They  have  not  existed  from 
eternity ;  they  shall  not  exist  to  eternity.  But  the  realm 
of  being,  whose  laws  of  action  the  Word  of  Christ  unfolds, 
is  not  touched  with  this  mutability.  It  abides.  That 
Word  shall  not  pass  away.  It  opens  to  us  the  truths  of 
the  world  of  spiritual  life — that  world  whose  highest  laws 
are  duty,  aspiration,  and  love.  We  are  in  that  realm  now. 
We  build  for  eternity.  The  virtues  we  form  to-day  that 
strike  the  key  of  the  eternal  harmonies  of  duty,  aspiration, 
and  love,  assimilate  us  to  God  and  all  holy  intelligences. 
These  will  shine  on  when  the  fixed  stars  shall  have  burned 
out. 

The  Word  of  Christ  is  the  art  of  right  living.  As  it 
embodies  in  practical  form  the  highest  truths  of  morality 
and  religion,  it  is  the  immutable  standard  of  life.  It  can 
never  cease  to  be  this  till  the  principles  of  duty  and  love 
are  reversed,  or  moral  beings  cease  to  exist.  "  The  chief 
end  of  man  "  is  to  bring  his  whole  being  into  conformity 
with  this  standard.  The  highest  use  of  life's  discipline,  as 
of  the  knowledge  of  science  or  of  human  history,  will 
be  found  in  the  aid  it  gives  to  adjust  ourselves  prop- 


THE  RETURN  TO   FAITH.  15 

erly  in  our  moral  relations  to  God  and  our  fellow  men 
according  to  the  terms  of  that  Divine  Word.     By  that  do 
we  best  learn  how  to  become  true  souls — true  to  ourselves, 
our  neighbor,  and  our  God. 

Now  one  who  is  morally  earnest  and  true  will  always 
bear  two  traits :  First,  he  will  seek  to  know  the  truth  that 
bears  on  his  duties  in  every  relation.  He  loves  it,  and 
searches  for  it  as  the  miner  for  gold.  Secondly,  when  he 
finds  the  truth,  he  acts  upon  it.  To  know  duty,  and  not 
do  it,  is  to  him  a  shameful  divorce  of  things  that  God  hath 
joined  together.  It  is  doing  violence  to  his  nature.  To 
see  a  good  thing  that  he  might  do,  or  an  evil  he  might 
abate,  and  remain  inactive  or  indifferent,  would  require 
an  evil  transformation  of  his  whole  character,  it  would 
'  imply  something  of  the  baseness  that  can  stand  by  and 
look  unmoved  upon  the  consummation  of  an  outrage.  To 
see  one  fallen  and  not  want  to  raise  him  up;  to  see  one 
struggling  to  rise  and  not  reach  forth  the  helping  hand; 
to  see  the  earnest  struggling  in  the  good  cause  against 
opposition,  and  not  join  forces  with  theirs,  is  equally  for- 
eign to  every  instinct  of  his  being.  He  wants  to  know ; 
he  is  ready  to  do — these  are  the  never  absent  traits  of  such 
a  soul. 

How  will  the  times,  and  the  religionists  of  the  times, 
stand  this  test?  A  becoming  earnestness  must  make  the 
inquiry.  Let  us  see.  A  few  evenings  since,  in  this  house, 
a  well  known  clergyman  and  popular  lecturer  kindled  a 
round  of  applause  by  a  vivid  picture  of  the  sham  Christi- 


16  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

anity  of  fashionable  city  churches,  and  the  cheap  shifts 
with  which  they  keep  up  appearances  of  doing  something 
to  give  the  gospel  to  the  poor,  by  missionary  chapels  and 
"straw  preachers."  The  picture  was  just.  The  evil  is 
real.  The  applause,  even  in  church,  may  not  have  been 
untimely.  But  is  it  enough  to  see  and  confess  the  evil? 
Will  that  make  us  true  souls?  Have  we  no  responsibility 
in  the  case?  To  make  an  evening's  entertainment  out  of 
the  poor  hypocrisies  of  religious  profession,  and  the  mise- 
ries and  degradation  which  they  insult  rather  than  re- 
lieve, is  one  thing;  to  feel  our  own  duty  in  the  case,  and 
take  hold  of  the  need  with  the  hand  of  help,  is  quite  an- 
other. 

Let  us  take  the  case  home.  Yonder  are  the  wandering 
masses,  rich  and  poor,  with  little  thought  and  less  care  for 
religion.  Here  are  comfortably  cushioned  pews,  vacant 
Sunday  after  Sunday.  We  find  our  own  very  enjoyable. 
The  expense,  if  not  quite  up  to  the  fashionable  figure,  is 
quite  beyond  the  purse  of  many  a  wanderer  yonder.  Are 
we  giving  ourselves  any  concern  to  bring  these  self-out- 
casts from  the  church  and  these  empty  seats  together? 
We  often  print  at  the  end  of  our  church  notice  the  words, 
"All  cordially  invited."  Does  the  heart  or  the  con- 
duct second  the  invitation?  Is  that  all  we  can  do?  Can 
we  use  no  other  means  to  send  our  influence  beyond  our 
own  limited  circle?  The  question  is  a  little  uncomfort- 
able. But  self-respect,  if  we  mean  to  be  true  to  our  pro- 
fessions, demands  that  we  ask  it  of  ourselves.  While  we 


THE  RETURN  TO   FAITH.  17 

applaud  the  picture  of  an  indolent  and  heartless  Christi- 
anity, we  are  in  some  danger  of  making  ourselves  the 
reality.  The  case  is  too  serious  to  be  enjoyed  as  an  even- 
ing's entertainment  and  then  dismissed.  What  can  be 
done?  Or  what  ought  we  to  attempt? 

Here  the  facts  confronting  us  half  stagger  me.  I  con- 
fess that,  for  reasons  which  will  soon  appear,  I  am 
not  sanguine  of  early  results,  even  if  we  try  and  do  our 
best.  Not  that  the  gospel  has  lost  its  power.  That  is 
charged  with  the  same  vitality  as  ever  to  regenerate  hu- 
man hearts,  and  purify  and  transform  human  lives.  But 
two  difficulties  stand  in  the  way :  First,  to  get  the  true 
gospel;  secondly,  to  find  a  channel  through  which  it 
may  be  brought  into  contact  with  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  these  unchurched  masses.  It  must  be  the  real  gospel. 
No  substitute,  no  counterfeit,  can  give  the  life  that  comes 
from  the  real;  no  more  than  the  cold  marble  image  can 
send  the  thrill  of  life  that  comes  from  the  warm  human 
touch.  And  then,  if  we  had  the  true  gospel,  as  vital  as  it 
fell  in  living  words  from  the  lips  of  the  Christ  himself, 
there  are  so  many  thick  layers  of  doubt,  and  prejudice, 
and  superstition,  and  downright  unbelief  to  be  broken 
through  and  torn  away  before  it  could  be  made  to  touch 
these  masses  which  most  need  it,  that  I  fear  a  long,  hard 
preliminary  work  -must  be  done,  before  we  can  hope  for 
its  large  success.  Suppose  that  we  should  resolve  that,  for 
one  society  under  the  sun,  we  would  shape  our  order  to 
meet  the  case.  We  take  counsel  of  the  "  holy  grumblers." 


18  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

We  put  away  the  lofty  airs  of  fashion.  We  clothe  our- 
selves with  the  garments  of  humility.  We  say  that  here 
shall  be  seen  the  equality  ef  discipleship  that  walked  by 
the  side  of  the  Redeemer  himself.  Then  we  throw  open 
our  church  doors;  we  take  our  names  off  the  pews;  we 
proclaim  abroad  that  here  is  a  Christian  church  where 
every  seat  is  free  to  every  one  who  will  come  and  occupy 
it,  and  where  the  gospel  can  be  had  without  money  and 
without  price.  Then  we  add  to  all  this  a  real  and  hearty 
welcome  to  every  comer  at  our  sociables,  and  make  the 
humblest  feel  that  there  they  are  accepted  on  an  equality 
with  the  most  wealthy  and  fashionable  that  honor  these 
gatherings  with  their  presence.  What  would  you  see? 
These  masses  flocking  into  these  seats  and  heartily  identi- 
fying themselves  with  this  society  and  its  work?  No! 
Not  a  dozen  a  year  more  than  now.  And  why?  They 
don't  want  what  is  called  the  gospel.  They  don't  believe 
that  it  is  either  necessary  or  good  for  them.  And  they 
do  not  know  that  they  would  find  anything  different  from 
that  strange  compound  of  philosophic  guesses,  church 
rites,  monstrous  dogmas  and  childish  superstitions,  min- 
gled with  many  grains  of  real  truth,  which  they  have 
been  taught  to  call  by  that  name,  if  they  should  come 
here.  That  compound  they  do  not  believe  in.  They  want 
no  more  of  it.  They  would  not  come  to  hear  if  you  should 
make  your  pews  ever  so  free. 

I  speak  from  experience  when  I  say  this.     Permit  me 
to  tell  you  how  I  learned  it.     When  this  church  was  or- 


THE  RETURN   TO  FAITH.  19 

ganized,  ten  years  ago,  I  said  it  must  be  a  true  Christian 
church,  for  the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich.  We  started  in 
Brayton  Hall,  doors  open,  seats  all  free.  We  sent  out  our 
welcome.  The  people  did  not  come  in.  I  said  they  did 
not  know  what  we  meant;  I  would  go  to  them  and  tell 
them.  I  would  follow  the  Christ,  whose  distinction 
was  that  he  preached  the  gospel  to  the  poor.  So  I  went 
down  below  Seventh  street,  and  in  Judge  Fogg's  office, 
kindly  thrown  open  to  me,  called  in  those  who  would 
come,  talked  to  them  in  a  familiar  way,  and  invited  con- 
versation on  the  great  theme.  Judge  Fogg  said  it  was 
the  most  interesting  meeting  he  ever  attended.  A  few 
more  came  in  the  next  Sunday.  The  address  was  brief; 
the  following  conversation  still  more  animated.  At  the 
third  meeting,  they  said  it  was  too  good  a  thing  to  be 
shut  up  in  such  narrow  limits,  and  we  must  go  up  town 
into  a  larger  hall,  and  give  all  a  chance.  We  must  organ- 
ize. We  must  have  a  President  and  by-laws.  We  must 
observe  parliamentary  order.  It  took  the  name  of  "  The 
Society  of  Free  Inquiry."  Very  soon  it  turned  into  a  sort 
of  free  debating  club,  where  every  sort  of  self-conceit  came 
in  to  ventilate  its  decimal  of  an  idea.  It  was  little  better 
than  a  public  resort  for  amusement,  or,  at  best,  entertain- 
ment, and  fortunately  died  with  a  crowded  debate  on 
"  Romanism  and  Liberty  as  related  to  Public  Education," 
between  the  late  President  Durant,  of  our  University,  and 
our  well  known  fellow  townsman,  Mr.  Zach.  Montgomery. 
This  taught  me  one  lesson,  viz.,  that  the  preacher  who 


20  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

goes  to  the  people  must  have  a  gospel  to  which  he  can 
hold  them  as  the  main  interest.  It  must  not  be  the  start- 
ing point  of  debate  over  a  thousand  curious  but  irrelevant 
questions,  that  do  not  touch  the  immediate  personal  moral 
need.  It  must  be  no  boggling  over  theological  or  meta- 
physical puzzles,  such  as  whether  the  Christ  had  two 
souls,  or  whether  God  exists  in  three  personalities,  or  how 
many  angels  can  find  foot-hold  together  on  the  point  of  a 
needle.  It  must  be  more  than  a  scientific  interest;  more 
than  food  for  the  intellect,  or  stimulus  to  curiosity.  It 
must  vitally  touch  the  life  of  the  soul.  Its  herald  must  be 
able  to  say  to  men,  first,  "  This  gospel  commends  itself  to 
your  reason ;  it  is  its  own  authority.  You  can  see  it  to  be 
true  if  you  will  consent  to  consider  it  without  prejudice." 
Then  he  must  be  able  to  add  with  equal  confidence :  "  It 
presents  the  first  matter  of  life  to  your  consideration.  You 
should  postpone  every  other  unsettled  question  till  you 
have  adjusted  yourself  rightly  to  this."  No  other  kind  of 
gospel  is  worth  preaching. 

So  I  brooded  over  this  matter  for  nine  years,  never  los- 
ing sight  of  it  for  a  single  day.  Meantime,  I  was  recon- 
sidering the  whole  system  that  had  come  to  me  through 
the  pulpit,  and  Sunday-school,  and  my  theological  teach- 
ers, as  the  gospel.  I  was  searching,  that  I  might,  if  possi- 
ble, penetrate  through  tradition  and  dogma  to  the  central 
and  essential  truth  of  the  Eternal  Word,  that  which  was 
for  the  perpetual  need,  and  for  universal  man.  I  sought 
to  winnow  out  of  this  the  chaff  of  individual  conceits  and 


THE  RETURN  TO   FAITH.  21 

temporary  opinions.  I  sought  to  study  man  as  he  is — as 
human  life  shows  him — that  I  might,  if  possible,  see  what 
makes  his  need  of  a  gospel  of  salvation.  I  studied  the 
Christ  hi  his  own  Word  and  life,  that  I  might  see  what 
there  is  in  him  to  meet  that  need.  I  could  see  clearly 
enough  that  I  must  have  a  positive  faith  to  preach,  and 
one  that  would  rouse  those  who  accepted  it  to  action.  At- 
tacking errors  alone  would  not  do.  Exploding  an  error 
does  not  give  men  the  truth.  To  shatter  the  old  dogmas, 
and  tear  down  the  churches,  would  not  build  up  right- 
eousness. To  wrench  away  idols  does  not  give  men  the 
true  God.  To  drive  away  the  ghosts  does  not  furnish 
them  with  pleasant  company.  To  banish  superstitions 
does  not  bring  in  realities.  To  pull  down  is  not  to  build. 
Building  is  the  difficult  thing.  Any  dirt-delver,  with  pick 
and  spade,  could  pull  down  St.  Paul's  or  St.  Peter's,  or  the 
Cathedral  of  Milan.  To  build  better  would  require  a 
genius  surpassing  a  Wren  or  an  Angelo,  aided  by  the  mas- 
ter workman.  Much  that  we  have  boasted  over  as  our 
brave  progress  in  religion,  has  been  this  cheap  work  of 
destruction.  The  dirt-delvers  of  theology  have  been  very 
busy,  and  have  made  great  shoutings  over  their  achieve- 
ments, when  they  have  leveled  away  some  turret,  or  pin- 
nacle, or  porch,  or  vestry,  too  rotten  to  stand  alone  much 
longer.  Let  us  not  undervalue  their  work.  It  was  nec- 
essary. But  the  time  to  build  is  now  upon  us.  The  dirt- 
delvers  stand  without  plan,  perplexed  and  hesitating  be- 
fore the  work. 


22  A  BEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

During  the  maturing  process  of  my  own  mind,  I  had 
firmly  resolved  that  I  would  never  preach  my  opinions  as 
settled  truths;  that  you  who  look  to  me  for  spiritual  food 
should  never  find  me  distributing  the  unripe  fruits  of  my 
thought  among  you.  If  I  expressed  an  opinion  to  you,  it 
was  given*only  as  an  opinion,  If  I  doubted,  I  never  failed 
to  speak  the  doubt.  I  have  dealt  honestly  with  you  and 
with  myself,  whether  wisely  or  not.  At  last  I  reached 
convictions  in  which  my  own  mind  found  rest  and  confi- 
dence. Truth  hi  its  substance  as  bread  for  the  soul's  hun- 
ger; truth  in  its  relations  as  self-consistent  and  satisfying 
the  reason,  and  truth  in  its  adaptation  to  the  times,  seemed 
to  open  the  revelation  of  new  possibilities  of  practical 
success  in  persuading  men  to  the  faith  of  Christ. 

I  resolved  to  make  a  new  effort  to  preach  the  Eternal 
Word  to  the  people — not  to  the  poor,  not  to  the  rich,  but 
to  all  who  would  hear  me.  Full  of  enthusiasm,  I  went 
down  below  Seventh  street  again,  hired  Van  Winkle  Hall 
at  my  own  expense,  hoping  that  a  larger  would  soon  be 
needed,  seated  it  reasonably  well,  banished  the  contribu- 
tion-box, went  from  house  to  house  during  the  week, 
explained  my  design,  and  invited  the  people  to  come.  I 
associated  with  me  persons  of  good  powers  of  popular  ad- 
dress, in  full  sympathy  with  the  object.  The  papers 
quietly  announced  our  movement.  Our  choir  kindly  came 
down  to  sing  for  us.  We  met  through  the  Sunday  even- 
ings of  two  months  or  more.  I  will  not  dwell  on  the 
results.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  nearly  all  who  came  at- 


THE  RETURN  TO  FAITH.  23 

tended  some  form  of  preaching  elsewhere,  and  no  larger 
hall  was  ever  needed. 

From  this  experiment,  two  suspicions,  which  had  some- 
times risen  in  my  mind  in  previous  reflection  on  the  mat- 
ter, were  confirmed :  First,  that  it  is  not  the  obstacles  which 
fashion  and  wealth  put  in  the  way  of  the  people  that  keep 
them  from  hearing  the  gospel ;  secondly,  that  some  changed 
conception  of  the  whole  matter  of  religion,  some  new  way 
of  looking  at  the  subject,  must  create  in  the  minds  of  the 
masses  a  new  sense  of  their  need  of  religious  faith  and 
worship,  or  they  will  never  come  into  the  churches.  A 
revolution  of  thought  must  precede  an  awakening  of  ear- 
nestness. Look  at  these  two  points.  Is  it  aristocracy  and 
fashion  that  keep  the  poor  out  of  the  churches  ?  The 
Romanists  find  no  difficulty  in  crowding  their  gorgeous 
and  expensive  cathedrals,  although  the  gulf  that  separates 
the  rich  and  the  poor  socially  in  their  communion  is  as 
broad,  at  least,  as  in  any  other.  All  flock  together  around 
their  altar  and  ritual.  And  why?  Because  they  have 
succeeded  in  keeping  up  the  belief  in  those  masses  that 
there  is  something  to  be  obtained  there,  and  nowhere  else, 
which  is  essential  to  their  temporal  and  eternal  welfare. 
They  feel  that  their  religion  is  a  necessity.  But  you  say 
that  it  is  ignorance  that  flocks  around  the  altars  standing 
in  the  dim  religious  light  of  their  superstitions.  Educate 
the  people,  let  in  the  day,  touch  their  minds  with  the  best 
thought  of  the  time,  and  they  will  turn  skeptics  and  stay 
away.  Aye,  indeed!  I  grant  you  that.  Too  well  they 


24  A  SEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

see  that  the  desk  of  the  public  school  teacher  and  the  altar 
of  their  worship  cannot  stand  long  side  by  side.  But  are 
you  going  to  say  there  is  no  possible  form  of  Christian 
faith  and  worship  which  education  will  not  banish?  Must 
the  night  of  ignorance  around  the  altar  of  prayer  be  eter- 
nal? When  I  believe  that,  I  go  down  from  this  pulpit  the 
last  time.  I  will  preach  no  faith  which  cannot  bear  the 
sunshine.  With  my  whole'  soul  I  believe  the  religion 
which  the  Christ  really  taught  is  the  one  want  of  the 
multitude  which  dwarfs  every  other.  If  that  religion 
were  taught  in  the  churches,  and  the  people  felt  their  need 
of  it,  there  would  not  be  room  for  them.  Wealth  and 
fashion  would  not  keep  them  away.  They  would  crowd 
them  aside  if  they  were  in  their  way,  as  they  crowd  them 
aside  at  a  public  fair.  Pew  rents  would  be  no  bar.  They 
are  willing  to  pay  for  what  they  want;  or  if  they  have 
no  money,  they  would  gladly  take  it  for  granted,  when 
such  a  need  is  concerned,  that  you  are  in  earnest  when 
you  invite  them  to  come  and  share  the  conveniences  of 
worship  and  instruction  you  have  provided.  But  the  fact 
is  they  are  indifferent  or  hostile.  They  will  give  neither 
time  nor  money  for  what  they  don't  want,  much  less  for 
what  they  despise.  Some  believe  neither  in  God  nor  in 
immortality.  More  are  vague  and  confused  in  their  reli- 
gious notions.  There  is  a  dim  feeling  that  a  better  hope 
for  their  future  would  be  a  good  thing,  but  they  know  not 
what.  They  doubt  whether  any  religion  they  know  any- 
thing about  would  do  them  good.  They  are  uncertain, 


THE   RETURN    TO   FAITH.  25 

so  they  drift  along,  and  wait  to  see  what  will  come.  The 
worst  feature  of  the  case  is  that  through  all  this  skepti- 
cism, and  uncertainty,  and  indifference,  there  runs  a  deep 
undercurrent  of  contempt  for  doctrines  that  have  been 
held  up  to  them  as  the  essential  thing  in  Christianity. 
They  look  at  history,  and  feel  that  some  of  those  doctrines 
are  at  once  a  menace  to  their  mental  liberty,  and  an  insult 
to  their  intelligence.  They  will  not  go  where  the  sound 
of  them  offends  their  ears.  They  are  told  that  they  are 
in  danger  of  being  lost  forever,  in  a  sense  from  which 
every  idea  of  a  just  God,  or  of  possible  truth,  revolts. 
They  fear  no  such  danger.  They  want  no  Saviour  from 
such  fictitious  terrors.  They  prefer  to  throw  their  chances 
on  the  opposite  teaching,  which  tells  them  that  they  are 
not  lost,  never  were,  and  never  will  be.  It  looks  the  more 
reasonable  of  the  two,  and  indifference  finds  comfort  in 
the  assurance  that  there  is  no  danger.  The  natural  and 
immutable  tendencies  of  moral  experience,  under  both 
these  views  of  their  condition,  are  lost  sight  of.  This 
modern  confusion  of  tongues  among  religious  teachers 
befogs  them.  Their  attention  is  completely  diverted  from 
the  real  need  of  their  souls.  Speak  of  religion  as  an  es- 
sential thing  to  the  well-being  of  man,  and  they  do  not 
know  what  you  mean.  Preach  to  them  just  as  Christ 
preached,  and  their  minds  would  be  on  the  fictions  of  the 
creeds.  Talk  of  salvation  from  sin,  and  you  are  thinking 
of  one  thing,  they  of  another ;  you  of  a  bad  moral  condi- 
tion in  men,  they  of  some  outward  penalty  to  be  inflicted 


26  A   SEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

upon  them ;  you  of  their  need  of  Christ's  helping  sympa- 
thy in  their  efforts  to  rise  into  some  sense  of  God's  truth 
and  love ;  they  of  running  away  from  a  whip.  Your  words 
are  lost  in  the  air. 

No  temporary  excitement  of  religious  feeling  is  going  to 
disturb  this  deep  indifference.  Our  Hammond  and  Moody 
revivals  but  ripple  the  surface ;  they  are  not  f  elt'lit  all  in 
the  depths.  Indeed  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  final 
effect  of  these  superficial  excitements  is  not  to  deepen  the 
indifference.  The  churches  have  come  to  rely  on  them 
largely,  if  not  mainly,  for  new  conquests ;  but  the  reaction 
often  sinks  and  stays  below  the  point  of  apathy  from  which 
the  movement  started.  It  is  the  young,  chiefly,  that  are 
caught  up  by  these  spiritual  whirlwinds,  and  three  years 
after  the  gale,  hardly  one  in  ten  will  be  found  maintain- 
ing their  religious  interest  or  activity.  That  means  nine 
out  of  ten  still  further  alienated  from  the  ways  of  the 
church.  The  modern  evangelist,  however  well-meaning, 
and  even  useful  in  certain  directions,  will  not  bring  the 
remedy  for  the  times. 

What,  then,  is  the  first  thing  to  be  done?  The  answer 
is  seen  in  the  necessities  of  the  case.  Do  away  with  this 
confusion  of  thought;  disabuse  the  minds  of  the  people  of 
these  fictions  that  have  taken  the  place  of  Christianity; 
then  concentrate  their  attention  on  the  essential  truth  that 
comes  to  us  from  the  lips  and  life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
When  that  is  seen  as  it  is,  men  will  begin  to  feel  their 
need.  That  truth  will  commend  itself.  Their  hunger 


THE  KETURN  TO   FAITH.  27 

will  know  its  bread,  and  they  will  seek  that  bread  wher- 
ever it  can  be  found. 

In  order  to  diffuse  this  new  way  of  thinking  through 
the  general   mind,  three  things  must  be   accomplished: 

1.  The  people  at  large  must  be  brought  to  see  what  the 
Bible  really  is,  as  the  most  advanced  and  reverent  Chris- 
tian scholars  of  the  day  have  come  to  understand  its  his- 
tory and  interpret  its  inspiration.     This  alone  will  be  a 
revolution.     Only  in  this  true  understanding  and  inter- 
pretation can  our  Sacred  Scriptures  ever  come  back  intox 
general  respect  and  confidence  as  the  true  light  ot  religion. 
This  need  will  make  the  theme  of  my  next  discourse. 

2.  The  people  must  be  brought  to  think  of  Christianity, 
not  as  a  miracle,  but  as  a  part  of  God's  unchanging  order 
in  the  evolution  and  manifestation  of  his  being  and  pur- 
poses.    They  must  learn  that  God's  methods  in  saving  and 
governing  man  are  as  much  in  the  order  and  uniformity 
of  law  as  his  methods  in  creating  and  controlling  the  ma- 
terial world.     The  profound  change  in  religious  thinking 
which  this  point  involves  will  become  apparent  as  we  give 
it  further  examination.     The  belief  in  special  divine  inter- 
positions in  the  affairs  of  this  world,  and  the  expectation 
of  them,  has  been  the  paralysis  of  conscience  and  all  moral 
energy,  and  the  disease  of  religious  experience.     The  sense 
of  law  in  God's  methods  will  bring  back  new  health  and 
energy. 

3.  Then  the  interpretation  of  Christ's  teachings  must  be 
brought  to  harmonize  with  this  view  of  divine  inspiration 


28  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

and  government.  Repentance,  faith,  forgiveness,  regenera- 
tion, atoning  sacrifice,  the  indwelling  and  power  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  the  resurrection  and  final  judgment,  have  all 
been  carried  more  or  less  into  a  realm  of  fiction  and  ca- 
price. They  must  be  brought  back  into  the  world  of 
actual  life  and  experience.  When  interpreted  by  reality, 
their  truth  will  be  confessed,  their  need  will  be  felt. 

Thus  presented,  that  Word  of  Christ  which  shall  never 
pass  away  would  come  to  men  as  almost  a  new  religion. 
It  is  no  divine  scheme  of  salvation  thrown  into  this  world 
by  miracle,  no  after-thought  or  splice  to  mend  a  break 
in  God's  work,  but  the  orderly  unfolding  of  heaven's  pur- 
pose in  forces  that  have  been  steadily  working  toward 
completion  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  It  presents 
to  men  a  Saviour  who  came  in  the  order  of  nature,  which 
is  the  order  of  God,  J/o  enlarge  the  revelation  of  divine  love 
found  less  clearly  in  nature;  appealing  to  the  heart  of 
enmity  in  the  mighty  persuasions  of  self-sacrifice  for  the 
hater,  pointing  the  penitent,  not  to  a  way  of  escape  from 
the  obligations  of  law,  but  to  the  healing  that  comes  to 
the  contrite  soul  by  returning  into  harmony  with  eternal 
law.  which  is  only  another  name  for  eternal  love,  beckon- 
ing the  soul,  self -enslaved  and  struggling  with  its  chains, 
to  the  open  door  of  mercy  which  leads  to  the  bosom  of 
God,  filling  earth  with  hope  and  eternity  with  glory. 
Hold  up  such  a  gospel  to  men  in  its  divine  simplicity  and 
reality,  and  reason  and  heart  and  all  the  soul  will  respond, 
"  This  is  the  Saviour  we  need." 


THE   RETURN   TO   FAITH.  29 

Slowly  this  revolution  of  thought  may  come.  You  and 
I  may  see  but  the  beginning.  But  come  it  will.  The  eter- 
nal order  and  nature  of  things  will  not  change.  Facts 
will  remain  as  they  are.  The  growing  light  must  reveal 
what  is.  The  poor  fictions  which  men  have  put  in  the 
place  of  reality  will  disappear  as  ghosts  vanish  in  the  ad- 
vancing dawn. 


The  Word  of  God  Unbound. 


John  v:  39.  Search  the  scriptures;  for  in  them  ye  think  ye  have 
eternal  life,  and  they  are  they  which  testify  of  me. 

The  Old  Testament  scriptures  testify  of  Christ  as  the 
sprouting  acorn  and  the  growing  sapling  testify  o£  the 
full-grown  oak.  The  growing  life  prophesies  its  own 
completeness.  That  germ  of  the  kingdom  of  God  among 
men,  which  first  becomes  apparent  to  us  in  the  account 
which  the  sacred  writings  give  us  of  the  faith  of  Abraham, 
the  enlarging  growth  of  which  can  be  traced  through  all 
the  pre-Christian  stages  of  Hebrew  history,  reached  its 
maturity  and  perfection  in  the  Christ,  and  from  him  was 
prepared  to  scatter  its  ripe  seed  over  the  field  of  the  world. 
I  shall  claim  to-day  that,  whatever  we  may  doubt  in  that 
history,  or  abate  from  it  as  fiction,  or  legend,  or  incredible 
absurdity,  we  can  trace  through  its  progress,  with  a  dis- 
tinctness that  leaves  no  reasonable  doubt,  the  expanding 
of  that  germ  of  divine  truth  into  clearer  meaning  an  1 
broader  proportions,  till  we  see  it  culminate  in  what  we 
may  accept  with  certainty  as  the  highest  manifestation  of 
divine  truth  to  man — the  words  and  life  of  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth. I  take  up  this  subject  that  you  may  see  the  grounds 
of  certainty  upon  which  our  religion  rests,  and  how  unwise 
and  unnecessary  it  is  to  base  it  upon  matters  that  are,  and 
perhaps  to  the  end  of  time  must  remain,  in  question. 


THE   WORD   OF   GOD    UNBOUND.  31 

The  general  impression  prevails  among  Christians,  that 
the  Scriptures,  both  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  were 
composed  by  certain  authors  who  were  divinely  inspired 
and  infallibly  guided,  whose  names  are  attached  to  them> 
and  to  whose  hands  their  origin  can  be  traced  without  any 
break  in  the  chain  of  historic  evidence.  Among  those 
who  do  not  accept  the  Bible  as  divinely  inspired,  the  im- 
pression is  equally  prevalent  that  this  is  the  claim  made 
for  those  scriptures  by  all  reliable  Christian  teachers,  and 
that  it  is  necessary  to  substantiate  the  assumption  before 
they  can  be  made  the  valid  basis  of  religion.  I  think  it 
will  appear  in  the  course  of  this  discussion  that  both  of 
these  impressions  are  erroneous.  Modern  scholars  and  in- 
terpreters claim,  on  the  contrary,  that  their  researches 
have  demonstrated  beyond  question  that  there  is  no  such 
certainty  respecting  the  authorship  of  a  large  portion  of 
the  Bible  as  has  been  supposed,  and  considerable  portions 
of  it,  in  the  Old  Testament  especially,  could  not  possibly 
have  come  from  the  hands  to  which  they  have  been  popu- 
larly ascribed.  The  Pentateuch,  for  example,  or  first  five 
books  of  the  Bible.  In  our  early  years,  we  were  never 
allowed  to  think  of  any  other  than  Moses,  the  great  law- 
giver of  Israel,  as  having  had  anything  to  do  with  its 
composition.  But  the  Biblical  interpreters  referred  to  are 
now  telling  us  that  it  could  never  have  had  existence  in 
its  present  form,  or  as  a  whole,  till  after  the  carrying  away 
of  Israel  to  Babylon,  eight  hundred  years  later  than  the 
death  of  Moses.  It  had  long  ago  been  noticed  that  the 


32  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

last  of  these  five  books  contained  an  account  of  the  death 
of  Moses  himself,  and  it  was  felt  that  an  author  could 
hardly  be  credited  with  acting  as  reporter  of  his  own 
funeral  ceremonies.  But  it  was  easy  to  suppose  that  some 
contemporaneous  scribe  attached  this  short  addition  to  the 
work  of  Moses  to  make  his  personal  history  more  com- 
•  plete.  But  a  closer  scrutiny  discovers  scores  of  allusions 
which  imply  that  the  writer  was  living  in  a  later  age; 
such  as,  "The  Canaanite  was  then  in  the  land;"  "These 
are  the  kings  that  reigned  in  the  land  of  Edom,  before 
there  reigned  any  king  over  the  children  of  Israel." 
Where  else  should  the  Canaanite  be  while  Moses  was  lead- 
ing Israel  through  the  wilderness,  we  ask ;  and  who  is  this 
writing  the  history  when  the  Canaanite  is  no  longer  in 
the  land,  and  after  the  first  king  had  reigned  over  Israel, 
more  than  four  hundred  years  after  Moses?  Moreover,  if 
any  other  author  should  have  written  like  this  of  himself: 
"Now  the  man  Moses  was  very  meek,  above  all  the  men 
which  were  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,"  we  should  not 
feel  that  such  a  report  of  his  humility  from  his  own  hand 
quite  sustained  the  claim.  We  would  be  glad  to  save  the 
credit  of  our  hero  by  finding  the  hand  of  an  interviewer 
in  the  fulsome  praise.  There  is  also  internal  evidence,  say 
these  scholars,  that  these  books  were"  made  up,  in  large 
part,  of  various  documents  and  traditions  of  different  and 
unknown  origin;  the  style  and  many  other  distinctive 
peculiarities  forbid  the  idea  that  they  all  sprang  from  the 
same  mind.  By  whom  they  were  gathered  and  combined 


THE  WORD   OF  GOD   UNBOUND.  33 

in  their  present  form,  with  considerable  additions  of  this 
latest  compiler,  we  know  not,  and  probably  never  will 
know.t 

So  of  the  Psalms  the  evidence  is  such  that  no  competent 
interpreter,  with  all  the  facts  before  him,  can  resist  the 
conclusion  that  the  larger  part  ascribed  to  David  never 
could  have  been  composed  by  him.  Professor  Robertson 
Smith,  inclined  to  be  liberal  in  his  allowance,  does  not  feel 
certain  of  more  than  two.  Larger  proportions  of  the  pro- 
phesies are  conceded  to  have  come  from  the  persons  whose 
names  they  bear;  but  of  these,  again,  many  exceptions 
must  be  made.  Notably  of  Isaiah.  The  last  third  of  that 
grandest  of  all  the  prophetic  writings  must  be  credited,  not 
to  Isaiah,  but  to  one  who  has  come  to  be  designated  among 
the  interpreters  as  "  the  great  Unknown." 

When  we  come  into  the  New  Testament,  the  light 
grows  clearer;  but  even  here  we  are  astonished  to  find 
that  the  "four  gospels"  cannot  be  proved  to  have  existed 
in  the  form  to  which  they  come  to  us  earlier  than  one 
hundred  and  twenty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  after 
the  crucifixion  of  Jesus.  No  ancient  author  pretends  to 
have  ever  seen  the  original  manuscript  of  either  of  the 
evangelists.  And  while  made  up  of  memorials  and  tradi- 
tions that  bear  reasonable  evidence  of  authenticity,  so  far 
as  they  are  historical,  no  one  can  dispute  but  that  there 
was  large  opportunity  and  strong  motives  for  the  intro- 
duction of  marvelous  and  legendary  matter  into  the  course 
of  their  narrative.  It  is  the  view  of  many,  Matthew 


34  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

Arnold  among  the  number,  that  the  profound  speculations 
concerning  the  "Logos"  or  Word,  in  the  gospel  ascribed  to 
John,  should  be  credited  to  some  highly  cultivated  and 
philosophic  Christian  Jew,  of  Alexandrian  education,  who 
took  occasion  to  unite  the  peculiar  views  of  his  own  school 
of  thinkers  with  the  memorials  of  Jesus  that  he  wrote  out, 
possibly  from  the  lips  of  that  apostle  himself.  The  man- 
ner of  alluding  to  places  in  Palestine  with  which  the  "  be- 
loved disciple"  must  have  been  perfectly  familiar,  betrays 
the  hand  of  the  stranger.  It  is  impossible  to  examine  the 
whole .  composition  closely,  and  retain  the  belief  that  it 
came  just  as  we  receive  it,  from  the  pen  of  John. 

Of  the  epistles,  there  is  general  agreement  of  testimony 
that  the  larger  ones  ascribed  to  Paul,  with  the  exception 
of  "  Hebrews,"  bear  the  unmistakable  impress  of  that  au- 
thor. Some  of  the  shorter  ones  are  decidedly  dubious. 
Among  the  number  must  be  reckoned  the  second  and 
third  of  John,  and  the  epistle  of  James.  The  second  of 
Peter  is  counted  out  entirely  by  an  almost  unanimous 
vote. 

I  can  find  room  in  this  discourse  for  only  a  bare  outline 
statement  of  the  case  thus  submitted  to  the  judgment  of 
Christendom.  But  who  are  the  men  that  presume  to 
write  such  things  of  our  Sacred  Scriptures.  Not,  I  beg 
you  to  notice,  the  destructive  rationalistic  critics  of  France 
and  Germany  only,  like  Renan,  Baur,  and  Strauss,  but 
many  of  the  most  earnest  and  reverent,  as  well  as  pro- 
foundly learned  clergy  of  the  churches  of  England  and 


THE  WORD   OF  GOD   UNBOUND.  35 

Scotland,  as  the  late  Dr.  Temple  and  Dr.  Arnold,  of  Rugby, 
Bishop  Colenso,  Dean  Stanley,  and  Prof.  Robertson  Smith, 
just  now  under  the  maul  of  Presbytery  for  his  article  on 
the  Bible,  written  for  the  new  Encyclopedia  Brittanica. 
These  authors  differ  widely  from  each  other  on  minor 
points.  They  often  stand  opposed  to  each  other  as  to  the 
real  date  of  some  of  the  sacred  writings,  especially  of  the 
older  documents,  and  also  in  regard  to  the  degree  in  which 
the  facts  disclosed  by  their  researches  affect  the  credibility 
of  the  history  or  the  divine  authority  of  the  teaching. 
Some  insist  on  a  basis  of  fact  in  the  narrative,  where  oth- 
ers affirm  that  the  whole  tissue  of  the  story  must  have 
been  spun  and  woven  in  the  imagination  of  an  author 
living  centuries  after  the  pretended  period  of  the  events.. 
But  on  the  main  question  a  growing  unanimity  will  be- 
observed.  Those  who  apply  themselves  to  the  in- 
vestigation without  bias,  and  take  pains  to  render  them- 
selves competent  to  form  a  judgment  in  the  case,  invaria- 
bly agree  that  the  facts  which  have  already  come  to  light, 
when  made  known  to  the  people,  must  compel  an  immense 
modification  of  the  current  views  in  the  church  respecting 
the  way  in  which  God  is  revealed  in  the  Bible.  Those 
facts  will  remain  what  they  are.  They  cannot  much 
longer  be  covered.  They  will  out.  Like  the  facts  of 
astroromy,  or  geology,  or  evolution,  they  will  compel  the 
human  mind  to  bend  to  them ;  they  are  not  going  to  bend 
to  its  pre-conceptions.  Dr.  Arnold,  many  years  ago,  pre- 
dicted the  shock  they  would  give  ere  long  to  tho  popular 


36  A   EEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

reverence  for  the  Bible.  He  knew  but  a  part  of  what  is 
now  known,  but  he  knew  enough  to  assure  him  that  a 
great  change  would  come.  I  have  not  enj  oyed  opportunities 
of  original  investigation  in  the  questions  here  raised.  I 
make  no  pretensions  to  speak  on  the  authority  of  my  own 
labors  in  that  line.  But  I  have  entered  into  the  labors  of 
the  masters  of  these  questions.  I  have  studied  both  sides. 
In  so  doing,  I  have  found  the  notions  in  which  my  theo- 
logical training  aimed  to  establish  me,  respecting  the  way 
in  which  the  Bible  was  given  to  man,  dropping  away  in 
spite  of  myself.  I  have  been  led  by  the  very  obligations 
of  my  position  to  inquire,  for  myself,  as  for  you  who  look 
to  me  as  a  teacher  in  spiritual  things,  What  can  we  rely 
on?  Is  there  anything  we  can  accept  as  established  and 
certain  beyond  the  possibility  of  being  shaken  by  any 
researches  and  discoveries  that  have  been  made,  or  that 
ever  can  be  made?  What  may  we  hold  for  our  own  life 
and  hope ;  what  may  we  teach  our  children,  in  the  assur- 
ance that  it  can  never  deceive  or  fail  us  or  them  as  the 
foundation  of  religious  trust?  Must  we  throw  away  the 
Bible?  Must  we  count  the  religion  which  its  teachings 
inspire  and  nourish  a  delusion?  Or  may  it  be  that  all 
these  changes  touching  the  letter,  the  mere  shell  of  the 
truth,  will  only  serve  to  set  free  the  substance  and  spirit 
of  the  Word  for  new  and  higher  demonstrations  of  power? 
It  is  to  give  you  the  answers  in  which  my  own  mind  has 
found  rest,  that  I  have  ventured  to  bring  forward  this 
theme.  The  time  is  more  than  ripe  to  open  it  to  the  peo- 


THE   WORD   OF   GOD   UNBOUND.  37 

pie  at  large,  and  prepare  them  for  the  impending  change- 
There  is  an  honest  timidity  about  attempting  this  on  the 
part  of  many  good  people,  which  I  cannot  share.  I  see 
neither  its  need  nor  its  wisdom.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  run- 
ning into  the  very  disasters  which  it  so  dreads  to  bring  on. 
It  puts  on  a  face  of  solemn  alarm,  and  whispers  under 
bated  breath,  "  The  facts  may  compel  the  learned  to  change, 
but  hush !  how  terribly  will  you  shake  the  trust  and  dis- 
turb the  peace  of  many  sincere  souls,  beautiful  in  the 
childlike  simplicity  of  their  faith!  Do  not,  oh  do  not 
trouble  such!  They  can  never  separate  the  incidental 
from  the  essential  in  inspiration;  the  form  from  the  sub- 
stance. Shake  their  belief  in  the  infallible  truth  of  every 
letter  of  the  sacred  record,  and  their  whole  Bible  will  be 
gone.  Every  dot  is  a  vital  part  to  them.  Their  mistaken 
beliefs  do  not  harm  them,  dear,  good  souls !  Leave  them 
alone ! "  Ah,  there  is  infinite  mischief  in  this  smothering 
of  light.  The  time  has  gone  by  for  treating  the  people  as 
babes  that  must  be  thus  tenderly  lapped  on  the  knees  of 
authority,  and  fed.  the  milk  of  the  Word  with  bib  and  tea- 
spoon. Many  of  them  are  ahead  of  their  spiritual  guides. 
They  have  leaped  from  the  lap  of  authority  and  made 
their  way  out  of  doors.  They  see  something  of  what  is 
passing  in  the  sunlight,  and  wonder  much  at  what  it  all 
means.  If  a  little  knowledge  might  prove  a  dangerous 
thing  to  some  childlike  believers,  so  beautiful  in  the  sim- 
plicity of  their  trust,  that  little  has  already  come  to  mul- 
titudes, disturbing  their  faith,  and  a  little  more  may  neu- 


38  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

tralize  its  danger.  Shall  the  quiet  of  these  comfortable 
little  ones  whose  peace  is  never  ruffled  by  the  gentlest 
breeze  of  doubt,  be  held  so  precious  as  to  forbid  us  doing 
anything  for  these  vaster  endangered  multitudes?  The 
only  safety  is  in  the  forward  march.  It  can  never  be 
found  by  going  into  perpetual  winter-quarters  to  nurse 
our  comfortable  camp-fires,  for  fear  we  may  catch  cold, 
or  encounter  too  stout  a  foe  if  we  move  on. 

And  now  let  us  turn  to  consider  the  great  outstanding 
facts  and  doctrines  of  the  Bible  that  are  placed  beyond 
reasonable  question,  and  see  if  they  are  not  a  certain  and 
sufficient  basis  of  religion. 

A  marvelous  race  came  into  notice  over  three  thousand 
years  ago,  whose  historic  life  can  b3  clearly  traced  down 
to  our  time.  They  dwell  among  the  nations  of  to-day  "  a 
peculiar  people."  Their  own  traditions  say  that  they 
sprung  from  an  ancient  Patriarch,  named  Abraham,  who 
emigrated  from  UT,  of  the  Chaldees,  westward  to  the 
eastern  shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  that  he  might  found 
a  nation  devoted  to  the  worship  of  the  M 03T  HIGH  GOD. 
Some  of  the  critics  insist  that  this  name  represents,  not  a 
historical  person,  but  a  tribe;  others,  that  it  is  but  a  myth. 
Whether  it  be  the  one  or  the  other,  no  matter  to  our  faith. 
The  name  does  stand  for  the  germinal  idea  of  a  great  re-  • 
ligion.  The  nation  that  cherished  and  evolved  that  germ 
must  have  had  an  origin.  Their  faith  must  have  had  its 
beginning.  There  must  have  been  a  life  in  its  germ  capa- 
ble of  the  mighty  growth  that  has  sprung  from  it.  Great 


THE   WORD    OF    GOD    UNBOUND.  39 

religions  do 'not  spring  forth  without  origin  any  more  than 
great  nations.  A  feeble  germ  cannot  grow  into  a  great 
religion  any  more  than  a  puff-ball  can  grow  into  a  world. 
The  central  idea  of  that  faith  must  have  originated  in  an 
individual.  Religions  do  not  rise  from  masses  of  men  any 
more  than  constitutions  of  government  or  systems  of  phil- 
osophy. There  must  be  an  originating  mind.  With  what 
person  soever,  standing  at  or  near  the  dim  origin  of  Israel, 
the  "worship  of  the  Most  High  God  first  rose,  represented 
to  us  by  whatever  name,  or  by  no  name,  he  clearly  de- 
serves to  be  counted  "the  Father  of  all  them  that  believe." 
Inheriting  his  mighty  idea  and  its  living  fruits,  small 
trouble  should  it  give  us  that  we  cannot  be  certain  of  his 
name  and  the  minute  incidents  of  his  life. 

In  a  tolerably  clear  historic  light,  this  race  emerges  to 
our  view  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  as  a  people  in  crushing 
servitude.  A  great  leader  and  law-giver,  Moses  by  name, 
rises  among  them,  delivers  them  from  the  hand  of  their 
oppressors,  leads  them  forth  from  -the  land  to  find  a  new 
place  of  habitation,  consolidates  their  separate  tribes  into 
a  nation,  gives  them  the  "  ten  words,"  or  commandments, 
for  their  moral  and  religious  guidance,  and  establishes 
them  in  the  worship  of  Jehovah.  So  much  the  learned 
critics  find  historic  reasons  to  concede.  It  is  enough  for 
our  faith.  The  man  who  had  wisdom  to  do  so  much  for 
his  people  must  have  been  able  to  give  them  many  things 
besides.  His  power  is  seen  in  the  consolidated  nation. 
We  know  that  under  some  leadership  this  people  con- 


40  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

quered  possession  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  which  their  tra- 
ditions claim  to  have  been  divinely  promised  to  Abraham 
as  a  home  for  his  descendants.  There  we  can  trace  the 
outline  of  their  varied  history  for  twelve  hundred  years. 
No  history  like  it  of  any  other  people.  Lapses  from  the 
worship  of  Jehovah  into  idolatry  through  all  the  earlier 
centuries,  morals  growing  too  corrupt  for  the  land  to  bear; 
but  great  reformers,  prophets  of  Jehovah,  ever  rising  to 
denounce  the  judgments  of  heaven  upon  their  infidelity 
and  iniquities,  to  call  them  to  repentance  and  return  to 
the  God  of  their  fathers ;  to  insist  on  purity  of  morals  and 
righteousness  of  life  as  the  essential  condition  of  his  favor, 
and  to  fire  the  hearts  of  the  faithful  with  the  divine  prom- 
ise of  a  magnificent  future  in  store  for  the  race.  Grand 
souls  were  those  old  prophets;  teachers  such  as  no  other 
religion  or  nation  of  ancient  days  gave  the  world.  Provi- 
dence wrought  with  their  words  in  the  discipline  of  the 
people.  Disaster  after  disaster  fell  upon  their  armies  in  wars 
with  enemies  round  about  them.  Humiliations  of  defeat, 
subj  ugation,  and  captivity  followed  each  other  in  succession, 
until  the  great  body  of  the  people  were  borne  away  to- 
gether from  their  land  of  promise  into  the  country  of  their 
conqueror.  This  purged  the  virus  of  idolatry  from  their 
blood.  The  remnant  that  came  back  to  their  old  homes 
after  seventy  years  brought  in  them  an  abhorrence  of 
idols  that  counted  any  reverence  or  worship  paid  to  any 
other  than  Jehovah  an  inexpressible  abomination  and  the 
sum  of  all  villanies.  Their  religion  thus  demonstrated  its 


THE   WORD    OF   GOD   UNBOUND.  41 

purifying  power.  It  contained  some  mighty  element  of 
truth  that  made  the  nation  purer  and  better  as  it  grew 
older — a  significant  fact  that  I  think  you  will  discover  in 
the  history  of  no  other  religion  of  the  ancient  world. 

But  now  we  come  to  facts  bearing  more  vitally  upon 
our  faith.  We  turn  to  Northern  Palestine,  to  the  geo- 
graphical division  called  Gallilee,  and  to  the  small,  mean 
city  of  Nazareth.  Here  is  a  rude,  half -savage  population, 
of  bad  reputation  even  in  an  age  that  was  not  nice  in  its 
moral  discriminations.  From  these  Gallilean  Jews,  about 
eighteen  and  one-half  centuries  ago,  rose  a  most  remarka- 
ble character,  in  the  person  of  a  workingman  of  this  pro- 
vincial city.  We  have  what  purports  to  be  a  fourfold 
biography  of  him  in  the  first  four  books  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, written  by  his  intimate  friends.  We  may  doubt 
the  miraculous  origin  claimed  for  him,  the  precocious  wis- 
dom by  which  he  is  reported  to  have  astonished  the  doc- 
tors of  the  temple  at  twelve  years  of  age,  and  the  super- 
natural deeds  by  which  he  still  more  profoundly  amazed 
the  multitudes.  These  are  not  the  pivots  of  our  faith. 
Prove  them  facts  or  prove  them  fictions  to-day,  and  the 
religion  he  taught  would  be  and  remain  just  the  same. 
In  no  sense  do  they  enter  into  its  substance.  But  this  we 
know — the  testimony  weaves  itself  in  with  all  subsequent 
history,  and  speaks  everywhere  in  the  best  life  of  Christen- 
dom to-day — this  obscure  carpenter,  Tesus  of  Nazareth, 
conceived  the  idea  of  a  universal  kingdom  of  Truth,  to  be 
built  up  within  the  hearts  of  men  by  faith  in  God ;  its  sole 


42  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

weapons  of  conquest  truth  and  love,  its  fundamental  law 
"  Good  Will  to  Men,"  its  symbol  of  power  the  cross,  it ;  bat- 
tle-cry "  self -sacrifice,"  its  title  to  promotion  humility,  its 
noblest  service  kind  deeds  to  the  poor  and  needy,  its  aim 
the  redemption  of  universal  humanity  from  sin  and  all 
forms  of  evil.  No  dream  of  philosopher  was  ever  so  bold. 
The  ambitions  of  the  great  world-conquerors  look  puny 
in  comparison.  It  would  seem  to  indicate  insanity,  or 
else  some  divine  insight  into  the  power  of  truth.  This 
humble  Jewish  workingman  goes  quietly  about  the 
effort  to  establish  this  kingdom.  He  gathers  a  dozen 
followers  around  him  from  equally  humble  stations  in  life, 
preaches  repentance  of  sin  to  the  people,  purity  of  morals, 
righteousness  in  all  actions,  self-control,  self-devotion  to 
truth,  forbearance  under  wrongs  and  persecutions,  love  to 
enemies,  faith  in  God,  and  a  living  trust  in  him  as  a  Father 
and  ever-present  Spirit  of  love_  and  helpfulness.  He 
crowns  this  simple  teaching  with  the  assurance  to  men 
that  the  soul  shall  live  beyond  the  grave,  and  shall  there 
be  judged  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body.  After 
two  or  three  years  of  this  public  teaching,  limited  wholly 
to  Palestine,  he  was  accused  of  being  a  dangerous  agitator 
against  the  peace  of  civil  government;  and  foreseeing  his 
death  as  near,  commissioned  his  few  followers  to  preach 
the  gospel  of  his  kingdom  after  he  was  gone,  and  then 
suffered  crucifixion  at  the  hands  of  the  civil  authorities. 

These  humble  disciples  took  up  the  word  of  their  mas- 
ter.    They  began  to  proclaim  that  he  was  risen  from  the 


THE  WORD   OF  GOD   UNBOUND.  43 

« 

dead,  and  was  not  only  alive  but  with  them  in  a  divine 
Spirit  of  truth  and  power,  to  move  the  hearts  of  men  and 
save  from  sin.  With  such  enthusiasm  did  they  deliver 
their  message  and  pursue  their  work,  and  such  influence 
did  they  gain  with  the  people,  that  in  a  few  years  they 
had  filled  the  most  populous  portions  of  Asia  and  North- 
ern Af  rka  with  the  faith  of  Christ ;  and  in  less  than  three 
centuries  his  religion  had  subverted  idolatry,  and  gained  a 
controlling  power  in  the  world-wide  empire  of  Rome. 

Now  take  this  religion  whose  light  we  have  seen  open- 
ing more  and  more  broadly  and  brightly  through  the 
centuries  from  Abraham  (or  whatever  the  name  under 
which  its  first  life  germinated),  to  Jesus,  perfected  in  the 
latter — take  it  for  just  what  you  can  see  it  to  be.  Strip 
it  of  all  dubious  incident,  of  all  myth  and  miracle ;  let  it 
stand  on  its  intrinsic  merits.  What  do  you  find?  Not 
one  essential  doctrine  but  commends  itself  to  your  highest 
reason  and  conscience.  Not  one  that  you  can  set  aside  if 
you  would  have  any  religion  that  gives  hope  and  life. 
Consider.  You  will  raise  no  debate  over  the  morality  of 
Jesus.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  other  utterances 
of  his,  so  far  as  the  duties  of  man  to  man  are  concerned, 
but  echo  the  voice  of  reason.  Morality  and  Christianity 
are  so  far  on  the  same  ground.  But  turn  to  what  Jesus 
teaches  of  God  and  man's  relations  to  him.  One  God! 
You  will  not  quarrel  with  him  there.  That  God  "our 
Father,"  tenderly  loving  and  caring  for  us.  There  is 
something  in  that  word  which  the  human  heart  grapples 


44  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

* 

the  moment  it  is  heard,  and  says,  "  If  he  be  God,  he  cannot 
be  other  than  such  a  God."  That  Father  ever  with  us, 
d'welling  in  those  that  receive  him  in  faith  by  his  Spirit, 
teaching,  comforting,  strengthening,  giving  them  to  know 
and  love  the  truth.  This  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  I 
accustom  myself  to  cherish  as  the  central  truth  of  the  re- 
ligion which  Jesus  taught.  In  experience  it  is  the  reali- 
zation of  "  Immanuel" — God  with  us.  It  is  the  life  of  faith. 
It  is  victory  over  evil.  It  involves  every  other  truth  at 
the  basis  of  religion.  And  yet,  when  you  reflect,  that 
doctrine  is  little  more  than  a  truism  to  the  reason. 
To  deny  it  is  virtual  atheism.  Is  there  a  God  ?  Is  he 
here  with  me?  And  yet  can  he  not,  will  he  not  aid  me? 
Must  I  think  of  him  as  an  indifferent  spectator  of  my 
search  after  truth  and  struggles  to  do  his  will?  Is  he 
interested,  but  powerless  to  aid?  The  thought  would 
undeify  him.  Doubtless  there  are  laws  which  he  never 
overpasses  in  the  manner  and  degree  of  imparting  his  help, 
immutable  conditions  under  which  we  must  receive;  peni- 
tence must  prepare  the  way  for  him  to  give  peace;  faith 
must  lift  the  eyes  to  the  light;  prayer  must  inhale  the 
divine  life — all  this  Jesus  taught,  and  reason  affirms  with 
equal  emphasis.  But  to  say  that  a  dead,  impenetrable 
wall  of  separation  rises  between  the  spiritual  nature  of 
man  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  cutting  off  all  possible  com- 
munion or  communication  between  them,  shocks  every 
instinct  of  reason  and  truth  in  the  soul.  "  To  know  God," 
says  Jesus,  "  is  eternal  life."  Theodore  Parker  insists  that 


THE   WORD    OF   GOD    UNBOUND.  45 

• 

the  full-grown  moral  man  is  "  conscious  of  God."  And 
even  Buckle  talks  of  "  the  fine  instinct  of  immortality  in 
man."  Are  this  consciousness  and  this  instinct  realities? 
May  we  not  well  believe,  then,  that  to  a  soul  like  Jesus, 
whose  insight  seemed  to  penetrate  every  secret  of  the 
interior  life  of  man,  the  realities  of  this  consciousness  and 
instinct  ever  lay  open  and  present  to  the  eye  like  house- 
hold pictures?  To  other  powers  of  the  mind  we  may  be 
unable  to  demonstrate  the  being  of  God  or  immortal  life, 
the  fundamental  truths  of  religion ;  if  these  are  closed,  the 
soul  remains  dark.  But  it  is  much  to  lower  natures  that 
one  like  Jesus  spoke  of  God  and  immortality  as  facts  at 
the  heart  of  all  life  that  were  never  to  be  called  in  ques- 
tion. Wonderfully  do  his  words  penetrate  our  inmost 
being,  and  commend  themselves  as  heaven's  own  light. 
Will  you  insist  that  a  testimony  which  stands  revealed  in 
its  own  inherent  certainty  shall  be  spoken  to  you  audibly 
out  of  the  sky,  and  authenticated  by  miracle,  before  you 
will  confess  its  reliability?  Compare  the  whole  Word  of 
Jesus  with  any  other  religion  the  world  offers  you.  Will 
you  doubt  which  is  best  for  human  life?  As  well  doubt 
whether  the  unclouded  noonday  sun  shines  with  a  clearer 
light  than  the  pale  crescent  of  the  waning  moon.  Exam- 
ine closely,  decide  honestly,  and  we  have  no  fear  but  you 
will  say,  that  if  we  are  to  have  any  religion  at  all,  it  can 
be  no  other  than  the  religion  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

But  here  the  objection  will  recur,  "If  we  cannot  accept 
the  whole  record,  miracles,  predictions,  dreams,  divine  voi- 


46  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

ces,  physical  appearances  of  Deity,  and  all,  as  statements 
of  indubitable  facts,  what  can  we  rely  on?  Can  we  re- 
ject a  part  without  thawing  discredit  on  the  whole? 
Where  shall  we  draw  the  line?  Who  shall  tell  us  what 
to  believe?"  I  answer,  seek  the  truth;  be  sure  you  want 
to  find;  ask  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  Truth;  and  then 
act  upon  what  you  can  see  and  know  to  be  true  and  best. 
Draw  the  line  for  yourself.  Decide  for  yourself ;  reject  what 
you  must;  suspend  judgment  where  you  doubt;  take 
warmly  to  your  heart  what  commends  itself  as  divine, 
and  you  will  make  no  fatal  mistake.  Can  you  not  doubt 
what  is  dubious,  without  throwing  discredit  on  what  every 
instinct  of  the  soul  feels  to  be  true?  Let  me  illustrate 
what  I  conceive  to  be  the  intrinsic  force  of  this  objection. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  wonderful  system  of  law  which 
comes  to  us  in  the  Justinian  Code,  elaborated  in  the  pecu- 
liar genius  of  the  old  Roman  mind  to  meet  the  exigencies 
of  government  rising  through  many  centuries  of  their 
rugged  history,  is  accepted  in  its  fundamental  principles 
is  a  safe  guide  in  the  practice  and  decisions  of  our  courts 
of  law  to-day.  Those  principles  are  self-evident,  and  good 
for  all  men  and  all  times.  But  now  imagine  your  wise 
critic  to  take  it  into  his  head  that  this  practical  use  of  that 
old  code  is  behind  the  times.  There  are  so  many  legends 
and  absurd  incidents  mingled  with  the  story  of  its  growth ! 
Why  will  sensible  men  so  stultify  their  reason?  He  re- 
peats the  story  of  Romulus,  founder  of  the  nation,  suckled 
by  a  wolf;  and  of  Quintus  Curtius,  who  jumped  into  the 


THE  WOED   OF  GOD   UNBOUND.  47 

chasm  that  yawned  across  the  forum,  that  it  might  close 
over  him  and  leave  smooth  ground  for  after  generations ; 
quotes  the  sayings  claimed  to  have  been  miraculously 
uttered  through  the  priestly  oracles;  makes  a  long  story 
of  other  wonders  of  like  nature,  scattered  through  the 
whole  history  of  the  people,  and  then  scornfully  exclaims: 
"  What  a  tissue  of  absurdities !  What  confidence  can  you 
place  in  a  code  of  laws  purporting  to  have  come  through 
such  a  long  line  of  incredible  nonsense?"  You  would  re- 
ply that  this  is  egregious  trifling.  Those  eternal  princi- 
ples of  justice  and  right  shine  by  their  own  inherent  light ; 
depend  in  no  slightest  degree  for  their  authority  upon  any 
incidents  or  legends  attending  the  history  of  their  intro- 
duction as  human  laws,  although  the  real  facts  of  that 
history  may  illustrate  and  make  clearer  their  practical 
application.  They  commend  themselves.  They  need  no 
other  credentials  than  their  usefulness  to  men. 

Now  turn  to  the  "  Ten  Commandments,"  conceded  to 
have  come,  substantially  as  we  receive  them,  from  the 
hand  of  Moses.  Does  the  credibility  or  authority  of  that 
divine  Code  depend  upon  our  ability  to  prove  that  it  was 
literally  written  on  two  tables  of  stone  by  the  finger  of 
God?  Turn  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  Parable  pf 
the  Prodigal  Son,  the  words  of  Jesus  asserting  the  father- 
hood of  God,  the  forgiveness  of  the  penitent  sinner,  the 
presence  and  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  heart  of  faith. 
Are  you  going  to  hesitate  over  receiving  these  blazing, 
noon-day  truths  of  the  soul  because  you  cannot  be  sure 


48  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

that  all  the  setting  of  miracle  and  story  in  which  they 
come  to  you  is  entirely  demonstrable?  Is  the  diamond 
any  the  less  pure  and  precious  because  you  are  not  quite 
sure  of  the  quality  of  the  casket?  The  law  found  in 
Sacred  Scripture  for  your  practical  guidance  and  self -dis- 
cipline, the  Spirit  promised  to  aid  your  search  for  truth, 
and  your  efforts  to  obey  its  light,  the  God  in  whom  your 
trust  may  repose,  the  whole  substance  of  the  religion  you 
learn  from  the  lips  and  life  of  Jesus,  is  just  the  same, 
whichever  way  the  weight  of  evidence  respecting  the  mar- 
vels of  the  record  may  turn  the  scale.  Your  soul's  moral 
welfare,  here  and  hereafter,  is  not  made  to  hinge  on  a 
theory  to  be  proven,  nor  on  a  fact  that  cannot  be  demon- 
strated, nor  on  witnesses  who  died  many  centuries  ago, 
and  cannot  now  be  put  on  the  stand;  it  depends  solely  on 
truth  that  you  can  see  here  and  know  to  be  true.  I  cannot 
express  how  childish  the  trifling  of  this  objection  with  the 
vastest  interests  seems  to  me.  When  I  watch  the  un- 
folding of  God's  self -manifestation  seen  through  the  whole 
history  of  the  Jewish  race,  when  I  see  its  glory  culminate 
and  complete  itself  in  the  Man  of  Nazareth,  when  I  feel 
how  the  truth  he  speaks,  and  the  truth  he  lives,  and  the 
truth  he  is,  meets  and  satisfies  the  deepest  wants  and  di- 
vinest  yearnings  of  my  spiritual  being,  I  could  sooner 
doubt  whether  the  fruits  of  the  earth  are  good  for  my 
bodily  hunger  and  nourishment  than  I  can  doubt  that  his 
gospel  of  hope  and  comfort  and  love  is  good  for  my  soul. 
No  spot  that  the  telescope  of  critical  learning  can  detect 


THE  WORD   OF   GOD   UNBOUND.  49 

on  the  face  of  that  Sun  can  make  me  question  for  a  mo- 
ment whether  it  is  the  true  light  of  the  world. 

I  cannot  forbear  adding  two  or  three  suggestions  in 
conclusion,  respecting  the  advantages  which  this  view  will 
give  in  reading  the  Bible. 

1.  It  will  relieve  the  reader  of  that  strange  repulse  of 
feeling  which  certain  incongruous  elements  of  the  Book 
are  sure  to  awaken  in  the  thoughtful  mind.  Can  this  be 
of  God?  is  the  secret  question.  It  rises  even  in  early 
childhood.  "Words  cannot  tell  the  torture  it  causes  some 
who  dare  not  refuse  to  read,  yet  dare  not  doubt.  Here 
this  incubus  is  lifted  from  the  mind.  Our  view  permits 
us  to  see  how  these  discordant  human  conceits  came  to  be 
mingled  with  divine  truth.  It  gives  us  the  Bible  as  a 
teacher,  not  as  a  tyrant  over  our  faith.  It  offers  its  ut- 
terances, not  under  the  raised  whip  of  authority,  saying, 
"  Receive  every  word,  however  incredible  it  may  seem  to 
you,  on  pain  of  eternal  wrath;"  it  offers  counsels  of  wis- 
dom in  the  name  of  love,  never  trying  to  force  upon  us 
treasures  which  we  cannot  see  to  be  valuable.  If  we  find 
it  impossible  to  believe  that  a  lifeless  rod  in  the  hand  of 
an  ancient  prophet  turned  into  a  living  serpent,  and  other 
rods  into  smaller  serpents,  only  to  be  swallowed  up  by  the 
first,  which  again,  upon  being  grasped  by  the  prophet,  was 
reconverted  into  a  rod,  as  before;  or  if  we  cannot  believe 
that  at  the  hour  when  Jesus  was  crucified  the  graves  cast 
forth  their  dead,  to  appear  among  their  living  friends 
again  in  the  Holy  City,  our  view  makes  room  for  this  in- 


50  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

firmity,  if  infirmity  it  be,  and  does  not  insist  upon  the 
impossible  as  the  inexorable  condition  of  our  salvation. 
"Prove  all  things;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good,"  is  at 
once  its  counsel  and  our  right. 

2.  It  will  free  us  from  the  impositions  of  tyrranous  re- 
ligious dogmas.  The  strongest  hand  of  iron  upon  the 
human  soul  has  been  the  assumption  of  an  infallibility  in 
the  letter  of  the  Bible,  which  man  must  not  question,  on 
peril  of  God's  displeasure.  No  device  for  the  suppression 
of  free  thought  could  have  been  more  effectual.  Under 
this  assumption  has  flourished  that  pettifogging  with  texts 
of  scripture,  by  which,  as  one  has  said,  "  anything  can  be 
made  of  anything."  There  has  been  no  end  to  the 
absurdities  drawn  from  the  mere  chance  phrases  of  the 
scripture  writers,  from  the  mere  sound  of  the  words,  and 
imposed  on  the  consciences  of  men  as,  a  "  Thus  saith  the 
Lord."  We  here  find  the  liberty,  nay,  learn  the  duty,  to 
inquire  whether  it  be  a  "thus  saith  the  Lord,"  or  only  the 
opinion  of  some  erring  mortal.  We  shall  not  receive  the 
words  of  a  book  if  they  contradict  the  Word  of  God  writ- 
ten in  our  own  hearts.  Vast  gain !  for  measureless  have 
been  the  mischiefs  which  these  human  inventions  claiming 
divine  authority  have  wrought  in  human  character — 
atonements  substituted  for  morality;  ceremony  put  in  the 
place  of  righteous  doing;  formal  worship  compounding 
with  heaven  for  downright  dishonesty ;  sincerity  withered 
away  in  the  heart  of  prayer;  conscience  lulled  to  sleep,  and 
religion  itself  turned  into  a  corrupter  of  virtue,  and  a 


THE  WORD   OF  GOD   UNBOUND.  51 

refuge  of  licentiousness.  Here  that  whole  view  of  Script- 
ure in  which  these  disastrous  methods  of  letting  sinners  go 
free  of  the  merited  scourge  have  found  suggestion  and  sup- 
port, is  swept  away.  Eternal  law  comes  back  into  au- 
thority. That  will  accept  no  substitute  for  righteousness. 
Conscience  regains  its  sensibility.  The  refuge  in  which 
all  depravities  of  heart  and  life  find  impunity  is  torn 
away.  The  motives  which  lie  at  the  heart  of  all  upright 
character  can  resume  their  place. 

3.  Under  this  new  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  the  inind 
turns  instinctively  from  the  form  to  the  substance.  "  The 
letter  killeth;  the  spirit  giveth  life."  The  interest  no 
longer  sticks  in  the  letter,  withers  under  its  hard,  dry 
crust,  or  drivels  over  a  date,  or  incident,  or  shade  of  mean- 
ing in  a  word.  The  mind  goes  straight  for  reality.  What 
is  man's  condition?  What  does  he  need?  What  are  his 
relations  to  God,  and  his  inalienable  obligations?  The 
Word  has  a  distinct  answer.  The  thoughts  set  free  from 
the  bias  of  false  assumptions  and  artificial  dogmas,  find  that 
answer.  The  soul  recognizes  the  truth  that  supports  its 
own  life. 


Law  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 


Acts  xv:  28:  For  in  him  we  live  and  -move  and  have  our  being. 
The  problem  of  religion  is  to  bring  God  near  to  man. 
This  is  the  same  as  to  say  that  it  aims  to  raise  in  man  the 
sense  of  the  fact  that  God  is  near  him.  The  fact  is  a  per- 
petual reality;  but  man  goes  through  the  world  with  his 
eyes  shut.  He  makes  no  discovery  of  the  fact,  or  if  some 
dim  glimpse  of  it  opens  on  his  soul  in  his  higher  moments, 
some  mist  of  the  world  floats  over  him  and  cuts  off  the 
vision.  He  goes  on  as  if  he  were  not  walking  in  the  Di- 
vine Presence.  Religion  has  often  done  much  to  defeat 
her  own  aim,  and  keep  man  from  seeing  God,  by  what 
she  has  taught  of  the  way  in  which  he  manifests  himself. 
She  has  asked  us  to  see  God  in  the  special  and  unnatural, 
rather  than  to  look  for  him  directly  in  the  common,  the 
natural,  and  the  universal.  She  has  led  us  into  the  habit 
of  waiting  for  the  special  and  extraordinary  before  we 
would  recognize  the  Divine  Presence  at  all.  She  tells  us 
of  a  burning  bush  seen  by  the  prophet  on  the  side  of  Sinai 
three  thousand  years  ago,  and  bids  us  bare  our  heads  and 
"put  off  our  shoes  from  our  feet "  before  this  wonder  of  the 
divine  power  and  glory ;  but  she  has  not  enough  insisted 
on  the  fact  that, 

"Every  common  bush  is  afire  with  God," 


LAW  IN   THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  53 

and  that  a  blazing  bramble  unconsumed  by  an  hour's 
flames  is  a  far  inferior  wonder  to  many  a  bush  on  many  a 
hillside  that  flames  out  with  the  blossoms  of  spring,  and 
then  wears  the  soberer  beauty  of  summer  and  autumn 
through  the  seasons  of  many  years. 

The  mistake  here  is  in  separating  God  from  nature. 
It  looks  upon  nature  as  a  dead  machine,  with  which  God 
once  had  something  to  do,  perhaps,  as  the  patentee  of  the 
invention,  and  as  having  shaped  and  arranged  its  parts, 
and  set  it  in  motion.  Then  it  supposes  him  to  have  taken 
his  hand  from  his  work  and  stepped  one  side  to  watch  and 
see  how  it  would  go.  Now  it  can  see  no  direct  manifesta- 
tion of  God  except  as  he  reaches  in  his  hand  to  arrest  the 
order  of  this  machine,  and  produce  a  wonder.  It  asks  his 
special  interpositions.  It  imagines  that  these  are,  or  might 
be  made,  the  best  proofs  of  his  being,  and  power,  and  love. 
It  says  that  nature  grows  the  lily,  and  sees  not  God  in  its 
clothing  of  beauty  that  outrivals  Solomon  in  all  his  glory. 
A  little  reflection  will  see  that  this  view  puts  God  far 
away  from  us.  How  much  nearer  to  man  will  religion 
bring  him  when  she  learns  to  recognize  him  in  all  the  en- 
ergies of  nature  we  see  at  work  around  us — in  the  force 
that  makes  the  streams  flow  and  the  stone  fall;  in  the 
life  that  makes  the  plant  grow  and  the  animal  strong;  in 
the  beating  of  the  pulse,  and  the  thrill  or  the  ache  of  a 
nerve!  This  is  what  Jesus  taught.  God  "clothes  the 
grass  "  in  its  hues  of  beauty.  And  this  is  all  involved  in 
Paul's  words:  "In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 


54  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

being."  God  is  in  nature,  and  not  apart  from  his  work — 
in  us,  in  our  nature,  and  not  away  from  us.  There  is 
where  we  are  to  look  for  him.  We  have  much  to  say  in 
this  age  about  the  laws  of  nature.  But  what  is  a  law? 
It  is  simply  the  way  in  which  some  being  or  force  acts. 
A  law  is  not  a  power.  It  is  not  the  thing  that  acts.  It 
is  only  a  mode  of  action.  What  is  the  force  in  nature 
that  acts?  Is  it  the  birth  of  inert  matter?  If  philosophy 
is  right  in  attributing  inertness  to  matter,  it  has  no  power 
to  originate  force.  It  cannot  start  itself  in  motion.  If 
this  be  so,  the  forces  of  nature  must  spring  from  some  liv- 
ing Will,  the  only  other  conceivable  origin  of  force.  Then 
we  shall  conclude  that  the  laws  of  nature  are  the  ways  in 
which  this  Will  acts,  or  puts  forth  its  energies  hi  self- 
manifestation.  God  is  the  force;  the  law  is  his  method. 
And  why  may  we  rest  with  such  confidence  on  the  uni- 
formity of  these  laws?  Because  the  infinite  Will  that  is 
in  them  is  unchangeable.  They  are  the  direct  expression 
of  the  divine  immutability. 

And  when  we  make  the  discovery  that  God  is  thus  in 
nature  vitally,  the  very  life  of  her  life  and  the  energy  of 
all  her  forces,  the  manifestations  of  his  presence  become 
not  only  constant  but  reliable.  Nature  cannot  possibly 
be  a  counterfeit.  No  finite  being,  angel,  or  demon,  or  jug- 
gler, can  produce  or  copy  her  realities.  They  expand  into 
being  slowly — the  outputting  of  forces  that  have  the  di- 
vine patience  in  them.  They  are  no  sudden  freak  of  some 
hasty  agent  who  cannot  wait.  They  bear  the  inimitable 


LAW  IN   THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD.  55 

stamp  of  their  Original.  Can  we  say  this  with  certainty 
of  any  sudden  arrest  of  nature's  order,  or  temporary  in- 
terposition? A  chemist,  for  aught  we  know,  might  con- 
struct an  asbestos  bush  that  would  blaze  for  a  day  and 
not  consume.  A  malign  spirit  might,  for  a  purpose,  heal 
a  fever,  or  start  the  current  of  life  afresh  in  a  body  from 
which  the  breath  had  departed.  The  Bible  suggests,  and 
even  records,  miracles  of  evil  spirits.  How  can  you  be 
sure  of  the  divine  agency  in  such  manifestations?  They 
do  not  necessarily  imply  unlimited  power.  How  really 
puny  does  the  greatest  of  these  sudden  interpositions,  or 
arrests  of  nature,  look  beside  almost  the  least  of  nature's 
real  works.  The  rose  that  blazes  in  your  garden  through 
several  months  of  the  year — you  feel  sure  that  no  created 
agent  could  do  that.  It  outdoes  all  the  miracles  ever  re- 
ported, as  a  reliable  manifestation  of  God.  So  with  the 
heart  that  throbs  steadily  on  through  three  score  years 
and  ten,  sustaining  the  growth  from  infancy  to  maturity. 
The  doctor  may  hurry  or  slow  the  pulse  for  a  day  or  a 
week;  the  magnetic  healer  may  steady  the  deranged 
nerves  for  a  like  period ;  but  no  agent  but  the  God  in  whom 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  could  give  that  heart 
its  wondrous  power  to  throb  on  through  seventy  years  of 
life. 

And  do  not  imagine  that  the  slowness  in  which  nature 
works,  or  the  length  of  time  which  she  takes  to  accom- 
plish her  results  detracts  anything  from  the  evidence  that 
it  is  God  who  is  working,  or  that  the  suddenness  with 


56  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

which  special  interpositions  come  and  finish  their  work 
and  end,  adds  anything  to  the  evidence  of  the  Divine 
Presence  and  power  in  them.  Sober  reflection  will  come 
to  the  very  opposite  conclusion.  Time  is  one  verifying 
element  in  the  manifestation  of  Him  with  whom  a  thou- 
sand years  is  as  one  day,  and  one  day  as  a  thousand  years. 
The  mill  of  God  grinds  slowly.  It  is  only  the  mill  of  man 
that  sends  the  grist  home  the  next  hour  after  it  is  received. 
The  patience  of  the  work  in  nature  proves  the  present 
God.  It  is  the  child  that  plants  the  bean  at  night,  and 
runs  in  the  morning  as  soon  as  he  wakes  to  dig  it  up  and 
see  how  it  is  coming  on.  The  man  plants  and  waits 
through  the  week  of  its  germination  and  the  months  of 
its  growth  and  ripening,  till  his  patience  is  rewarded  with 
the  increase.  God  plants  and  nurtures  and  waits  a  thou- 
sand or  a  million  years  or  ages,  if  need  be,  for  the  ripe 
harvest;  and  it  is  just  this  infinite  patience  of  nature  in 
which  we  recognize  with  certainty  the  presence  of  the 
Infinite  Worker.  Let  us  not  be  caught  by  the  sudden- 
ness of  any  manifestations,  present  or  reported,  and  car- 
ried away  with  the  idea  that  we  have  in  them  a  revela- 
tion of  God  that  can  be  compared  in  clearness  and 
certainty  with  the  grand  unfoldings  of  the  Purpose  that 
runs  through  the  centuries  and  the  ages. 

Keligion  squanders  her  greatest  advantage  when  she 
turns  from  the  uniformity  of  nature,  and  lays  the  chief 
emphasis  of  her  teaching  on  miraculous  interpositions. 
You  will  begin  to  see.,  friends,  why  I  am  so  much  in  earn- 


LAW   IN   THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  57 

est  to  impress  this  idea  that  the  divine  kingdom  is  one  of 
order.  Unchanging  law  is  the  sign-manual  of  God.  We 
know  his  work,  and  we  know  his  presence,  by  that  signa- 
ture. We  cannot  know  him  with  certainty  in  any  mira- 
cle. It  is  not  infinite.  It  is  not,  like  any  growth  or 
object  in  nature,  a  finite  part  of  a  universal  system  or 
order.  It  is  a  thing  by  itself.  It  might  be  the  product  of 
a  finite  agent — say,  if  you  will,  some  mighty  angel,  or 
some  spirit  from  earth  grown  to  a  power  manifold  greater 
than  is  ever  attained  on  earth.  It  cannot  be,  in  the  nature 
of  the  case,  the  sure  witness  of  the  present  God.  The 
Creator  is  in  the  universal  and  natural  directly  and  mani- 
festly; in  the  exceptional  or  miraculous,  if  at  all,  only 
indirectly  and  through  a  finite  representative.  Miracles 
are  as  numerous  in  this  day  as  in  any  former  age.  They 
are  as  well  authenticated  as  they  ever  were.  I  do  not 
deny  their  reality.  That  is  purely  a  question  of  fact,  to 
be  determined  by  testimony.  Neither  you,  nor  I,  nor 
Huxley,  nor  any  most  competent  scientist  that  has  scanned 
all  that  is  known  of  material  nature,  the  whole  universe 
with  which  his  science  has  to  do,  are  competent  to  deny  the 
possibility  of  miracles.  To  do  that,  we  must  have  looked 
beyond  material  nature,  and  scanned  the  whole  realm  of 
spiritual  existences,  and  become  able  to  say  that  there  is 
certainly  no  being  in  all  that  realm  competent  to  produce 
on  our  earth,  impressing  itself  on  our  senses,  the  phenome- 
non we  call  a  miracle.  Let  no  mortal  say  that.  It  is  the 
sheerest  dogmatism  and  presumption  in  the  scientist  when 


58  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

he  assumes  to  do  so.  I  must  not  be  misunderstood  as 
taking  that  ground.  But  I  am  fully  prepared  to  assert 
my  conviction  that  the  Divine  Will  or  Power  is  not,  and 
never  has  been  in  a  single  instance,  directly  exerted  to 
work  a  miracle.  I  so  believe  from  a  deep  sense  that  grows 
up  within  me  as  I  study  the  ways  of  God's  working  in 
nature,  in  life,  and  in  the  human  soul,  that  miracle  is  not 
one  of  his  ways.  I  cannot  think  that  he  would  resort  to 
this  mode  of  manifesting  himself,  when,  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  case,  as  soon  as  the  human  mind  has  grown  to  a 
capacity  to  weigh  evidence,  the  manifestation  must  be 
dubious  and  unsatisfactory.  I  cannot  think  that  he  would 
resort  to  this  lower  evidence,  if  it  be  evidence  at  all,  when 
he  has  spread  all  over  the  face  of  earth  and  sky,  and 
woven  into  every  fiber  of  man's  own  being,  overwhelming 
proof  of  his  presence  and  power  and  goodness — evidence 
that  no  finite  being  can  counterfeit.  I  cannot  believe 
that  he  would  descend  from  a  method  which  no  mind  that 
fully  takes  it  in  can  resist,  to  a  method  which  every  com- 
petent judgment  feels  to  be  unreliable.  And  the  more 
that  method  is  considered,  the  more  will  it  be  distrusted 
as  a  manifestation  of  the  Divine. 

I  can  see  here,  also,  the  reason  why  Jesus  ever  refused 
to  rest  his  claim  to  be  heard  on  the  physical  wonders  he 
was  able  to  work.  I  can  see  why  he  met  the  eager  mul- 
titude that  ran  after  him  to  see  a  miracle,  with  the  half 
impatient  reproach:  "Except  ye  see  signs  and  wonders, 
ye  will  not  believe."  Signs  and  wonders  could  not  be  the 


.    LAW  IN   THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD.  59 

evidence  of  God  he  sought  to  give  them.  I  can  see  why 
he  hurled  the  charge  of  depravity  and  sensuality  against 
this  class  with  such  vehement  energy:  "A  wicked  and 
adulterous  generation  seeketh  after  a  sign."  Their  in- 
ward eye  was  so  dark  to  divine  light,  their  souls  were  so 
buried  in  the  senses,  that  spiritual  things  must  be  mate- 
rialized to  find  any  entrance  to  their  hearts.  His  claim 
rested  on  the  inherent  and  eternal  authority  of  the  truth ; 
and  his  appeal  was  made  directly  to  the  universal  recep- 
tivity in  truth-loving  souls,  which  does  not  need  to  be 
assaulted  and  forced  by  any  startling  physical  displays. 
"  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear  let  him  hear,"  is  the  refrain 
that  runs  through  all  the  solemn  music  of  his  utterances. 
The  ear  that  is  healthfully  true  will  not  miss  the  meaning 
of  the  sound  in  my  words  of  truth.  God's  voice  is  not  so 
uncertain  that  it  need  be  mistaken.  The  healthy  appetite 
knows  its  own  bread.  The  true  soul  knows  its  own  kin. 
I  can  see,  further,  that  those  discoveries  in  ancient  lit- 
erature, and  the  criticisms  on  the  Sacred  Scriptures  which 
they  compel  us  to  make  (noticed  at  length  last  Sunday), 
showing,  though  they  do  beyond  question,  that  we  are 
not  and  never  can  be  sure  of  the  miracles  recorded  in  the 
Bible  as  veritable  historic  facts,  will  bring  no  loss,  but  a 
positive  gain,  to  religion.  To  the  superstition  that  bases 
the  truth  on  miracles  it  will  seem  the  inevitable  ruin  of 
Christianity.  To  the  faith  that  rests  on  the  eternal  au- 
thority which  is  in  the  truth  itself,  just  where  Christ 
rested  his  claim,  it  will  touch  nothing  at  all  that  is  of  the 


60  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

least  value.  It  will  bring  help.  It  will  throw  off  an  in- 
cubus that  was  threatening  to  stifle  the  life  and  power  of 
the  truth.  It  will  leave  us  fre'e  to  drop  the  vexing  ques- 
tions that  were  keeping  the  mind  in  perpetual  hesitation 
and  uncertainty,  and  turn  to  those  indubitable  truths  that 
take  hold  upon  the  life  and  duties  of  the  hour.  Christi- 
anity will  start  forward  on  a  new  career  of  power;  disen- 
tangled from  the  subtle  webs  of  dogma  and  superstition, 
when  this  view  comes  to  prevail — as  prevail  it  will. 

Furthermore,  we  have  but  to  reflect  a  little  to  see  that 
the  view  which  regards  the  Divine  Government  as  carried 
on  by  a  series  of  miraculous  interpositions  and  interfer- 
ences with  nature  is  unfortunate  (to  use  no  stronger 
word),  in  its  influence  on  the  mind.  It  unbalances  its 
poise,  unsettles  its  rest,  unsteadies  its  trust.  Observe,  and 
you  will  see  that  this  has  been  its  effect.  For  ages  men 
have  thought  of  God  as  creating  the  world  by  a  turn  of 
the  hand,  and  then  as  throwing  each  new  form  of  life 
into  it  by  a  miraculous  act,  and  at  last  as  finishing  a  full- 
grown  man  out  of  the  dust,  between  sun  and  sun  Now 
that  the  demonstrations  of  science  have  scattered  all  this, 
we  see  how  much  grander  and  more  worthy  of  deity  is 
the  view  which  sees  him  creating  in  the  method  of  law— 
with  a  slow  progress,  it  is  true,  advancing  through  ages 
of  ages,  but  in  a  sublime  order  that  is  radiant  along  its 
whole  line  with  infinite  wisdom  and  skill  and  love.  In 
the  same  way,  men  have  conceived  of  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  God  as  inaugurated  and  carried  on  by  broken 


LAW  IN    THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD.  61 

and  convulsive  manifestations  of  the  divine  power.  All 
along  its  course  God  is  seen  as  flinging  miracles  out  of  the 
sky  before  the  startled  eyes  of  men,  and  at  last  crowns 
this  system  of  irregularities  with  a  Being  so  entirely  out 
of  the  order  of  nature  and  human  life,  that  for  eighteen 
hundred  years  he  has  been  interpreted  as  setting  science 
and  religion,  faith  and  reason,  the  heart  and  the  head, 
God  and  nature,  in  antagonism  with  each  other.  So  the 
whole  moral  administration  of  God  has  been  turned  into 
a  series  of  special  expedients.  Regular  order  is  lost  sight 
of.  The  wholesome  sense  of  such  order,  the  basis  of  all 
stable  principle  in  human  character,  is  dissipated.  The 
mind  is  stimulated  with  a  prurient  expectation  of  extra- 
ordinary and  unnatural  manifestations.  Faith  is  thrown 
off  its  poise  of  trust  in  the  ever  present  One,  and  demands 
wonders.  Christian  effort  grows  jerky  and  spasmodic. 
All  reliance  on  the  regular,  educating  forces  of  religion  is 
broken.  And  religion  itself  too  often  becomes  a  pitiful 
oscillation  between  the  frantic,  fevered  activities  that 
spring  from  the  imagination  of  special  divine  interposi- 
tions, and  the  sluggish  apathy  that  grows  over  reaction 
and  disappointment.  The  religious  community  is  put  in 
much  the  same  state  of  mind  with  the  citizens  of  a  gov- 
ernment whose  legislation  is  capricious,  and  regulated  by 
no  fixed  principles  The  wonder  in  every  mind  is  what 
the  legislators  will  be  about  next.  Nobody  can  tell. 
Nobody  knows  what  to  do.  The  only  certain  thing  is 
the  universal  uncertainty  and  lack  of  confidence.  Such 


62  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

is  the  feeling  when  the  methods  of  divine  manifestation 
are  regarded  as  incalculable,  and  out  of  all  established 
order.  When  we  shall  consent  to  see  that  God's  moral 
administration  is  as  regular,  aud  as  free  from  the  touch 
of  special  expedients  and  interferences  as  his  physical 
creation,  we  shall  begin  to  feel  its  Divinity.  Its  mighty 
uniformity  will  tell  us  it  is  of  God.  No  deceiver  can 
mimic  the  universe,  nor  put  in  a  section  that  fits  and  fills 
a  place  as  a  part  of  the  creative  whole.  We  shall  be  able 
to  trace  the  unity  of  God's  self-manifestation  in  creation 
and  Christ,  the  unfolding  of  his  purpose  from  the  monad 
to  the  man,  from  the  man  in  his  moral  infancy  to  THE 
MAN  in  the  divinity  of  his  perfection ;  and  then  on  still 
in  the  work  begun  and  going  slowly  forward,  and  that 
shall  never  cease  till  all  the  families  of  the  earth,  now  torn 
apart  and  warring  with  each  other,  shall  be  gathered 
under  the  power  of  that  harmonizing  perfection  into  the 
one  united  family  of  God. 

But  some  philosophic  thinker  may  here  object,  "In  thus 
representing  God  as  intimately  and  inseparably  in  nature, 
in  the  present  energy  of  all  her  forces  now ,  you  identify 
the  Deity  with  nature,  and  even  with  matter."  No;  I  do 
not  even  raise  that  question.  As  to  whether  creation  is 
of  one,  or  of  dual,  or  of  manifold  substance,  I  have  noth- 
ing to  say.  I  simply  identify  the  forces  of  nature  with 
the  present  direct  manifestation  of  God.  One  thing  is 
certain — God  either  is  or  is  not  in  matter.  If  he  is  not, 
then  matter  cannot  be  inert.  It  must  bear  in  its  atoms 


LAW   IN    THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD.  63 

some  inherent  principle  or  power  of  action.  In  that  case, 
the  materialists  would  seem  to  have  the  advantage  of  us. 
Who  could  say  but  that  principle  might,  if  we  could  fully 
comprehend  it,  account  for  all  the  forms  of  existence  with 
which  we  are  acquainted?  Who  could  say  that  the  atom 
did  not  make  the  universe,  as  Lucretius  claims,  "  without 
the  meddling  of  God?"  But  if  God  is  in  matter,  then 
have  we  full  warrant  for  what  I  have  assumed  touching 
his  direct  manifestation  in  nature.  I  claim  that  God  is 
the  Builder  of  the  physical  universe,  and  that  he  holds 
every  part  and  atom  of  it  under  direct,  eternal,  perfect 
control — that  is  all.  I  no  more  identify  him  with  the 
creation  than  I  identify  the  engineer  with  the  engine  that 
he  builds  and  runs. 

But  this  impressive  inference  does  follow,  beyond  ques- 
tion, from  the  view  here  taken  of  God  as  being  in  nature. 
We  are  ever  dealing  directly  with  him  in  our  life  here  on 
earth.  He  is  not  afar  off.  He  is  not  a  Being  whom  we 
are  to  meet  and  settle  with  hereafter.  He  settles  with  us 
every  moment.  What  we  feel  here  and  now  is  his  con- 
tinuous, unvarying  administration.  We  feel  his  touch  in 
nature.  He  is  in  all  her  forces.  He  is  in  their  laws  of 
action.  They  are  the  laws  of  his  action.  All  the  results 
they  work  out  are  of  his  appointment.  He  is  in  the 
pleasure  of  every  taste  that  nature  gives  us.  He  is  in  the 
pain  of  every  nerve.  Both  are  the  expression  of  his  will. 
Both  come  in  the  immutable  order  or  system  of  things 
which  he  has  arranged,  and  which  he  upholds  and  impels, 


64  A   REASONABLE    CHRISTIANITY. 

knowing  from  the  beginning,  and  at  every  stage  of  its 
advance,  every  minutest  effect  that  would  spring  forth 
from  its  ongoing.  All  that  comes  into  our  experience  in 
the  line  of  nature's  forces  and  laws,  whether  agreeable  or 
the  reverse,  whether  of  joy  or  of  pain,  is  to  be  referred 
directly  to  him  from  whose  WILL  these  forces  stream 
forth,  and  these  laws  derive  their  sanction.  What  we 
feel  through  them  is  God  putting  his  laws  in  force.  If 
there  be  a  God,  it  must  be  good  philosophy,  as  well  as 
good  faith,  which  teaches  that  in  "him  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being."  It  must  be  true  that  we  are  to  re- 
gard ourselves  as  dealing  directly  with  him  in  all  that 
comes  to  us  in  the  fixed  order  of  nature. 

Then,  finally,  this  way  of  thinking  forbids  the  antici- 
pation of  special  divine  interpositions  in  the  future,  either 
to  reward  or  punish.  God's  immutable  order  will  go  on. 
We  have  seen  the  mistake  that  looks  back  upon  his  past 
administration  as  a  series  of  such  interpositions,  stepping 
aside  to  attain  ends  that  could  not  be  reached  in  the  ap- 
pointed order  of  things.  This  is  the  parent  of  that  artifi- 
cial conception  of  the  divine  government,  as  ruinous  to 
human  conscience  and  morals  as  it  is  to  faith,  that  ex- 
pects our  future  of  good  or  evil  to  be  made  by  special 
interferences  and  arbitrary  acts  of  God.  Its  heaven  is  a 
toy  with  which  the  Great  Father  will  make  his  good  child 
happy.  Its  hell  is  a  whip  of  flame,  or  some  form  of  pain 
inflicted,  with  which  he  will  forever  scourge  the  nerves. 
The  immutable  connection  between  the  life  and  the  con- 


LAW   IN   THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD.  65 

dition  which  makes  the  good  or  the  evil,  the  joy  or  the 
pain,  the  inevitable  retributions  of  law,  are  lost  sight  of. 
The  feeling  grows  into  the  soul  that  God  can  give  us  just 
what  he  pleases,  and  as  he  is  good  he  will  heap  joys  upon 
us,  no  matter  what  our  moral  condition  has  grown  to  be. 
This  violence  to  reason  and  order  must  be  stayed.  It 
turns  religion  into  a  curse,  instead  of  making  it  the  life  of 
the  world.  Every  act  of  to-day  goes  into  our  moral  con- 
dition— bettering  it,  if  the  act  be  good ;  lowering  it,  if  the 
act  be  evil.  Its  effect  is  instantaneous.  The  very  doing 
throws  its  change  into  the  condition.  Its  consequences 
run  forward  into  the  future,  because  that  condition  re- 
mains and  grows  better  or  worse  according  as  we  go  on 
to  act  well  or  ill.  We  shall  have  what  we  can  have  in  the 
state  we  make  in  ourselves.  The  award  in  kind  and  de- 
gree is  meted  out  by  forces  as  invariable  and  inevitable 
as  the  magnetism  that  turns  the  needle  to  the  pole.  No- 
interposition  can  change  at  will  that  interior  growth  of 
the  soul  shaped  under  the  hand  of  bygone  years,  any 
more  than  it  could  change  a  fiend  into  an  angel.  And 
that  condition  is  our  heaven  or  our  hell. 


A  Progressive  Creation  the  Type  of  a  Pro- 
gessive  Revelation. 


Romans  1:  20:  For  the  invisible  things  of  him  from  the  creation  of 
the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are 
made,  even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead. 

God  is  seen  in  nature.  The  works  reveal  the  Worker. 
Natural  religion,  whose  interpreter  is  reason,  makes  this 
assertion.  The  Life  at  the  heart  of  nature  flushes  the 
face  of  creation.  Reason  finds  God  as  creator,  and  learns 
not  only  that  he  is,  but  something  of  what  he  is,  from 
what  he  does.  This  is  the  purport  of  the  text. 

When  the  claim  is  advanced  that  the  Bible  is  also  a 
revelation  of  God  still  more  clear  and  inspiring,  it  is  met 
with  objection.  Some  portions  of  the  Book  are  admitted 
to  be  worthy  of  a  divine  origin.  Nothing  purer  in  mor- 
ality or  grander  in  aim  lies  on  the  page  of  literature. 
But  other  portions  wear  a  strange  look — such  crude  state- 
ments; such  puerile  exactions;  sometimes  such  cruel  and 
bloody  sentiments  and  commands — it  seems  a  sacrilege  to 
attribute  anything  emanating  from  the  same  source  with 
these  to  God's  inspiration.  The  Book  seems  like  the 
mythical  figure  of  the  ancient  imagination,  which  pre- 
sents the  perfect  face  and  form  of  a  man  above,  but  runs 
into  the  legs  and  claws  and  tail  of  a  dragon  below.  We 


NATURE   AND   THE  BIBLE.  67 

like  the  face,  but  object  to  the  continuations.  We  think 
the  creature  cannot  be  of  God's  creation. 

I  have  made  it  plain  that  many  of  these  absurdities 
may  be  accounted  for  as  the  invention  of  writers  who 
lived  centuries  after  the  characters  whom  they  pretend  to 
represent.  Yet  with  this  admission,  and  after  all  the  al- 
lowances it  demands  are  made,  I  have  claimed,  and  do 
claim,  that  the  evolution  of  a  perfect  and  universal  reli- 
gion can  be  traced  in  the  histories  and  teachings  of  the 
Bible.  In  the  coarse  but  rich  soil  of  the  primitive  Jewish 
mind  the  divine  seed  germinated ;  there  took  root,  sprang 
up,  and  grew,  till  it  gave  the  world  its  ripe  fruit  in  the 
Person  and  Word  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Rough  was  the 
bark  of  the  letter  that  enveloped  and  protected  that 
growth,  but  nothing  less  than  a  divine  life  of  truth  within 
could  have  survived  the  wear  and  shocks  of  that  history, 
and  risen  to  such  a  splendid  and  beneficent  maturity.  It 
may  conciliate  the  objector's  prejudices  on  the  score  of 
these  uncouth  imperfections  of  the  letter,  and  pre-dispose 
him  to  search  for  the  hidden  treasure  within  it,  if  we  can 
discover  a  clear  parallel  in  this  growth  of  Revelation  out 
of  the  imperfect  into  the  perfect,  with  that  evolution  of 
creation  where  Paul  and  human  reason  unite  in  testifying 
that  the  eternal  Power  and  Godhead  are  seen  to  be  at 
work.  This  will  be  the  attempt  of  the  present  discourse. 

A  century  and  a  quarter  ago,  Bishop  Butler  gave  the 
world  his  immortal  "  Analogy  of  Revealed  Religion  to  the 
Constitution  and  Course  of  Nature."  He  traced  in  the 


. 


68  A   KEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

"facts  of  creation  and  natural  Providence  "  a  close  parallel 
with  the  worst  looking  features  objected  to  in  the  Bible. 
He  then  drew  the  patent  inference  that  if  these  observed 
facts  do  not  require  us  to  deny  that  creation  is  the  work 
of  God,  the  matters  so  entirely  like  them  in  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  are  not  a  valid  reason  for  rejecting  them  as 
containing  a  revelation  of  God.  But  in  the  good  Bishop's 
day  the  habit  of  mind  was  to  regard  the  whole  creation 
as  a  mechanical  product  of  Almighty  Power,  begun  and 
finished  within  the  six  working  days  of  our  calendar 
week.  There  was  hardly  a  dream  of  that  long  process 
going  on  through  uncomputed  ages,  and  by  the  orderly 
working  of  natural  forces,  which  it  is  the  glory  of  our 
later  science  to  have  demonstrated.  This  opens  the  way, 
I  am  sure,  for  tracing  a  profounder  and  more  wonder- 
fully convincing  analogy  between  a  progressive  creation 
and  a  progressive  revelation.  The  former  will  appear  as 
a  marvelously  distinct  type  of  the  latter.  The  God  who 
is  moving  step  by  step  towards  a  clearly  defined  result  in 
the  one,  is  seen  advancing  in  like  steps  toward  an  equally 
definite  aim  in  the  other.  The  process  and  the  consum- 
mation both  reveal  the  presence  and  purpose  of  the  same 
comprehending  Mind. 

I.  Let  us  turn,  first,  to  the  facts  of  creation.  God  be- 
gins with  the  lower  and  ruder  forms,  and  gradually  ad- 
vances to  the  more  perfect.  The  process  is  written  with 
sunbeams  everywhere  through  the  leaves  of  nature.  He 
begins  with  matter  "  without  form  and  void."  He  slowly 


NATURE   AND   THE   BIBLE.  69 

reduces  the  chaos  to  order  and  beauty  for  the  home  of 
life.  In  this  process,  matter  is  thought  to  have  been  at 
first  a  mere  "star  mist,"  diffused  widely  through  space. 
Then  it  is  condensed  into  a  fluid  ball.  Afterward,  it  is 
brought  into  solider  cohesion  as  rock  and  clod.  Then  as 
chemical  and  magnetic  forces  begin  their  play,  the  crystal, 
the  gem,  and  every  other  mineral  form  of  use  and  beauty 
takes  shape.  When  the  earth  is  ripe  for  such  a  new  form 
of  being,  vegetable  life  starts  forth — first  in  the  lowest 
forms,  as  kelp,  lichen,  and  moss,  afterward  rising  into  the 
grandeurs  of  the  forest,  and  offering  seeds  and  scions  that 
may  be  cultivated  into  the  lovely  growths  of  our  gardens. 
When  the  dwelling  is  ready  and  provisions  stored,  animal 
life  appears,  the  full  maturity  of  its  lowest  known  form 
seeming  but  an  inorganic  drop  of  gum  or  jelly.  From 
this  humble  beginning  the  creation  advances  through  ris- 
ing grades  and  orders  of  life,  until  man  appears  and  is 
crowned  as  "Lord  of  Creation" — the  end  toward  which 
creative  Wisdom  in  all  that  preceded  was  approaching. 

Do  not  overlook  one  remarkable  fact  here,  the  highest 
proof  of  a  controlling  Intelligence  in  all  this  progress — the 
first  and  lowest  animal  forms  dimly  prophesy  the  last  and 
highest.  The  idea,  of  the  highest  is  outlined  in  the  lowest. 
The  whole  process  struggles  upward  toward  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  ideal  in  the  Creator's  mind.  But  lest  you 
shall  accuse  me  of  shaping  these  statements  to  suit  a  pur- 
pose, and  not  to  mirror  facts,  let  me  ask  you  to  call  in  as 
witnesses  some  of  the  first  scientific  minds  of  the  world, 


70  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

who  have  made  the  study  of  this  department  of  nature  a 
specialty.  Professor  Owen  is  confessed  "  supreme  in  his 
own  special  walk  as  a  comparative  anatomist."  Let  us 
first  hear  him :  "  The  recognition  of  an  ideal  exemplar  for 
the  vertebrated  animals,  proves  that  the  knowledge  of 
such  a  being  as  man  must  have  existed  before  man  ap- 
peared. For  the  Divine  Mind  that  planned  the  archetype 
also  foreknew  all  its  modifications.  The  archetypal  idea 
was  manifested  in  the  flesh,  under  divers  modifications, 
upon  this  planet  long  prior  to  the  existence  of  those  ani- 
mal species  that  actually  exemplify  it."  This  is  to  the 
point.  Next  call  Agassiz  to  the  witness-stand.  He  opens 
his  testimony  with  these  remarkable  words:  "I  have  de- 
voted my  whole  life  to  the  study  of  nature,  and  yet  a 
single  sentence  may  express  all  that  I  have  done — I  have 
shown  that  there  is  a  correspondence  between  the  succes- 
sion of  fishes  in  geological  times  and  the  different  stages 
of  their  growth  in  the  egg — that  is  all."  He  means  to  say 
that  if  you  place  the  egg  of  the  highest  species  of  fish 
under  examination,  and  watch  it  from  the  first  quickening 
of  the  "germ-spot"  which  your  microscope  reveals,  to  its 
complete  development,  you  will  read  the  history  of  the 
creation  of  fishes  on  our  globe.  The  first  stage  of  growth 
represents  in  form  and  condition  the  full-grown  fish  of  the 
lowest  grade ;  the  next,  a  species  one  grade  higher,  and  so 
on  in  just  the  order  in  which  they  appeared  in  the  seas  of 
our  earth,  as  the  places  of  their  fossils  in  the  geological 
strata  clearly  evidence.  He  modestly  adds:  "It  chanced 


NATURE  AND   THE   BIBLE.  71 

to  be  a  result  that  was  found  to  apply  to  other  groups, 
and  has  led  to  other  conclusions  of  a  like  nature."  It  is 
really  a  discovery  that  is  to  the  study  of  biological  science 
what  the  Copernican  theory  was  to  astronomy ;  and  If  I 
mistake  not,  will  be  found  to  be  even  more  fruitful  of  re- 
sults in  human  advancement.  It  applies  to  the  whole 
range  of  animal  life.  There  is  a  close  resemblance  be- 
tween the  lower  orders  of  each  type,  radiate,  mollusk, 
articulate,  and  vertebrate,  and  the  embryo  stages  of  growth 
in  the  higher  species  of  that  type.  Of  this  Agassiz  says: 
"  They  truly  reveal  the  unity  of  the  organic  conception,  of 
which  man  himseif  is  a  part,  and  mark  not  only  the  in- 
cipient steps  in  its  manifestation,  but  also  with  equal  dis- 
tinctness every  phase  in  its  gradual  realization.  They 
mean  that  when  the  first  fish  was  called  into  existence, 
the  vertebrate  type  existed  as  a  whole  in  the  creative 
thought,  and  the  first  expression  of  it  embraced  potenti- 
ally all  the  organic  elements  of  that  type  up  to  man  him- 
self." An  organic  prophecy,  or  anticipative  idea,  of  God- 
The  German  naturalist  Oken,  speaks  the  same  thing  in 
the  terse  sentence,  "  Man  is  the  sum  total  of  all  the  ani- 
mals." In  another  work,  Agassiz  says  again  of  this  pro- 
gressive creation :  "  It  is  evident  that  there  is  a  manifest 
progress  in  the  succession  of  beings  on  the  surface  of  the 
earth.  This  progress  consists  in  an  increasing  similarity 
to  the  living  fauna,  and  among  the  vertebrates  especially 
in  their  increasing  resemblance  to  man."  When  he  adds: 
<:  But  this  connection  is  not  the  consequence  of  direct  line- 


72  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

age  between  the  faunas  of  different  ages;  there  is  nothing 
like  parental  descent  connecting  them ;  the  fishes  of  the 
Paleozoic  age  are  in  no  respect  the  ancestors  of  the  rep- 
tiles* of  the  Secondary  age ;  nor  does  man  descend  from 
the  mammals  which  preceded  him  in  the  Tertiary  age;" 
I  must  think  that  he  would  have  yielded  to  the  accumu- 
lating evidence  that  the  Creator  brought  these  rising 
grades  of  life  into  existence  under  the  law  of  genetic  de- 
scent, had  he  lived  a  few  years  longer.  This  evidence  is 
such  that  it  has  compelled  the  conviction  of  living  scien- 
tists one  by  one,  till  hardly  a  single  representative  of  any 
note  stands  for  the  opposed  view.  But  Ke  is  in  full  accord 
with  the  Christian  evolutionist  again  when  he  goes  on  to 
say  of  these  progressive  species  of  life,  "  The  link  by  which 
they  are  connected  is  of  a  higher  and  immaterial  nature; 
and  their  connection  is  to  be  sought  in  the  view  of  the 
Creator  himself,  whose  aim  in  forming  the  earth,  in  al- 
lowing it  to  undergo  the  successive  changes  which  Geology 
has  pointed  out,  and  creating  successively  all  the  different 
types  of  animals  which  have  passed  away,  was  to  intro- 
duce man  upon  the  surface  of  our  globe.  Man  is  the  end 
toward  which  all  the  animal  weation  has  tended  front 
the  first  Palceozoic  fishes  "  Well  may  Hugh  Miller  add: 
"  These  are  extraordinary  deductions.  '  In  thy  book/  says 
the  Psalmist,  '  all  my  members  were  written  which  in 
continuance  were  fashioned  when  as  yet  there  were  none 
of  them.'  And  here  is  natural  science,  by  the  voice  of 


NATUItE   AND   THE   BIBLE.  73 

two  of  its  most  distinguished  professors,  saying  exactly 
the  same  thing." 

The  testimony  to  a  progressive  and  prophetic  creation, 
so  far  as  there  is  now  time  to  give,  is  before  you. 

II.  Turn  now  to  Revelation.  We  shall  find  in  tne  Bi- 
ble a  similar  course  of  progress  and  prophecy.  We  need 
not  allow  the  objection  that  its  earlier  portions  are  un- 
historic  to  embarrass  us.  We  are  not  looking  for  inci- 
dents of  history,  but  for  the  progress  of  ideas,  conceptions 
of  God  and  man,  and  of  the  whole  range  of  moral  and 
religious  obligation.  Grant  that  the  history  was  com- 
piled in  a  later  day  and  is  in  many  of  its  incidents  unre- 
liable; in  the  very  progress  of  ideas  that  can  be  traced 
through  its  course  we  have  the  proof  that  the  writer  was 
guided  by  some  documents,  or  traditions,  or  inspiration 
that  kept  him  essentially  to  the  actual  course  of  the  hu- 
man mind.  It  is  hardly  more  supposable  that  a  later 
imagination  invented,  purely  out  of  its  own  conceits,  the 
features  of  a  great  history,  than  that  some  great  human 
genius  devised  the  order  of  nature. 

Begin  with  Genesis.  What  idea  of  God  will  you  gain 
from  the  account  of  creation?  Simply  that  he  is  a  Being 
of  creative  power  and  order.  No  hint  as  yet  of  a  moral 
attribute.  In  the  story  of  the  Fall,  a  dim  sense  of  obli- 
gation appears.  The  Creator  commands.  The  creature, 
made  in  his  image,  feels  bound  to  obey.  Fear  and  shame 
slink  away  to  hide  after  disobedience.  Right  and  wrong 
«.re  faintly  recognized — the  most  primary  distinction  es- 


74  A  KEASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

sential  to  a  moral  nature.  It  is  the  Palseozoic  stage  of 
the  moral  creation — the  outline  sketch  only  of  the  com- 
plete moral  man.  We  discover  little,  if  any,  advance 
upon  this  until  we  come  to  the  story  of  Abraham.  Here 
I  must  think  real  history  begins,  though  mingled  largely 
with  legend.  The  grand  idea  of  the  Patriarch  to  take 
his  family  away  from  the  idolatry  of  his  kindred  and 
neighbors,  and  emigrate  to  a  region  where  they  would  be 
isolated  from  the  corruptions  of  a  polytheistic  worship, 
that  he  might  found  a  nation  devoted  to  the  worship  of 
THE  MOST  HIGH  GOD — this  is  not  in  the  style  of  the 
romancer.  It  is  too  large,  too  real.  The  story  wears  the 
colors  of  a  real  life.  We  need  not  affirm  that  Abraham 
was  a  monotheist,  denying  the  existence  of  any  other  god; 
The  time  may  have  been  too  early  for  that.  That  he 
worshiped  the  Most  High  may  have  been  a  tacit  admis- 
sion that  there  were  inferior  gods.  But  the  faith  that 
stoutly  refused  to  worship  any  other  than  the  Most  High, 
and  felt  assured  that  "  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  would 
do  right,  and  that  he  would  ultimately  give  possession  of 
the  earth  to  those  who  walked  in  his  law  of  righteousness 
— this  faith  marks  an  era  in  the  growth  of  religion. 
Abraham  founded  the  worship  that  culminated  in  Chris- 
tianity. He  was  justified  by  faith,  and  became  "the 
Father  of  all  them  that  believe." 

We  may  pass  the  story  of  Joseph  as  wearing  a  less  au- 
thentic look,  and  as  adding  no  new  element  of  truth  to 
the  idea  of  God  found  in  the  faith  of  Abraham.  We  next 


NATURE  AND  THE  BIBLE.  75 

come  to  the  great  Lawgiver  of  Israel.  An  exile  from  the 
court  of  Egypt,  in  his  solitary  meditations  among  the 
awfully  rugged  mountains  of  the  desert  of  Sinai,  there 
comes  over  the  soul  of  Moses  a  new  sense  of  God's  pres- 
ence and  being,  figured  as  a  "  burning  bush,"  and  he  feels 
as  if  he  must  put  off  his  shoes  from  his  feet,  because  the 
place  on  which  he  stands  is  "  holy  ground."  The  idea  of 
the  Divine  Holiness  has  dawned.  Here  in  this  third 
chapter  of  Exodus  the  word  "  holy  "  first  occurs.  It  is  a 
sense  of  something  higher,  purer  than  anything  ever  dis- 
tinctly conceived  before.  Right  and  justice  have  been 
held  as  a  sort  of  commercial  virtue,  good  for  traffic,  and 
in  general  for  man's  relations  to  his  fellow  man.  Holi- 
ness turns  the  eye  within  upon  what  we  are  in  secret 
thought  and  intention.  It  demands  that  these  be  such 
as  to  bear  the  scrutiny  of  the  All-searching  Eye.  And 
henceforth  the  constant  reiteration  sounds  in  the  ears  of 
God's  chosen  people,  "Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy!"  No- 
tice the  striking  fact.  Their  highest  conception  of  God's 
purity,  righteousness,  and  perfection  is  here  made  the 
ideal  for  their  own  inward  life.  Their  ideal  of  him  might 
be  imperfect,  but  it  was  the  best  their  minds  could  shape. 
If  there  was  anything  they  conceived  as  low,  and  mean, 
and  wicked,  they  left  that  out  of  their  idea  of  God.  If 
there  was  anything  transcendentally  excellent  and  good, 
they  wove  that  in.  "  That  ye  must  be,"  said  the  Prophet. 
There  is  no  measuring  the  power  of  this  law  of  self -disci- 
pline, this  spiritual  ideal  to  which  they  were  taught  that 


76  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

they  must  conform  even  their  secret  thoughts.  With 
this  holiness  of  God  particularized  in  the  law  of  the  "  Ten 
Commandments,"  the  nation  started  forth  on  its  inde- 
pendent career.  It  took  many  generations  to  naturalize 
their  wild  blood  under  the  divine  law.  With  the  people 
at  large,  it  was  never  more  than  a  partial  success.  Still 
there  is  a  maturing  of  their  thought  of  God,  and  a  deep- 
ening of  its  influence  in  the  life  of  the  people  to  be  traced 
through  their  history.  In  the  stern  equity  of  the  Judges, 
in  the  tender  songs  of  Psalmists,  turning  to  human  view 
the  side  of  mercy  in  a  holiness  that  was  coming  to  appear 
too  awful  in  its  justice,  in  the  visions  of  holy  Prophets* 
withering  idolatry  and  its  corruptions  with  Jehovah's 
wrath,  and  picturing  THE  MAN  and  the  glory  that  was  to 
be — in  all  these  the  ideal  of  God's  holiness  is  seen  to  be 
growing  clearer  and  fairer.  But  not  yet  do  we  see  the 
highest.  It  is  only  when  we  have  passed  through  Law 
and  Psalm  and  Prophecy,  and  come  to  THE  MAN  in  whom 
all  these  are  fulfilled,  that  the  full  glory  of  that  which  has 
been  opening  to  our  eyes  through  the  ages,  breaks  upon 
us.  Then  the  Divine  Perfection  is  summed  in  one  lu- 
minous word — God  is  Love.  Jesus,  "  the  brightness  of  the 
Father's  glory,  and  the  express  image  of  his  Person," 
directs  us  to  look  toward  the  Infinite  Holiness  and  say 
"  Our  Father."  "  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the 
Father."  That  is  to  say,  "  In  my  life  of  love  and  self- 
sacrifice  and  self-devotion  to  humanity,  you  see  what  God 
i9-»to  man.  You  learn  the  heart  he  bears  toward  you. 


NATURE   AND   THE   BIBLE.  77 

I  am  the  Truth.  I  am  the  Word  of  God.  He  speaks  to 
the  world  through  me.  In  me  you  may  rise  to  the  high- 
est idea  of  God  and  his  relation  to  man."  The  closest 
study  of  Jesus  and  his  words  but  serves  to  confirm  this 
claim.  We  do  learn  the  highest  the  mind  of  man  has 
conceived  and,  so  far  as  appears,  can  conceive  of  God  in 
him.  He  stands  commended  even  to  science,  in  what  he 
is  seen  to  be,  as  the  consummation  of  moral  and  spiritual 
evolution.  As  man  is  "  the  sum  total  of  all  the  animals," 
so  the  Love  of  Jesus  to  humanity  is  the  sum  total  of  the 
divine  virtues.  He  crowns  and  completes  the  moral  and 
spiritual  revelation  of  God,  as  the  physical  man  crowns 
and  completes  the  material  creation.  Both  are  alike  the 
culmination  of  a  long,  gradual,  progressive  evolution. 

III.  Let  us  now  gather  up  some  of  the  suggestions 
which  this  instructive  parallel  offers. 

It  appears  that  Divine  inspiration  just  keeps  pace  with 
the  growth  of  the  human  mind.  The  first  truth  given  is 
very  rudimentary,  because  human  faculties  are  yet  very 
rudimentary.  God  develops  a  mind  capable  of  a  full  in- 
spiration before  he  gives  the  absolutely  perfect  truth. 
There  is  no  evidence  of  a  verbal  communication  of  truth 
from  Heaven  to  man  above  the  grade  of  faculty  he  had 
attained,  or  beyond  the  stage  of  advancement  he  had  at 
a  given  time  reached.  The  Spirit  works  in  and  through 
man's  faculties,  not  upon  them  from  without.  The  choice 
of  the  Jewish  race  as  the  channel  through  which  a  perfect 
.Revelation  should  be  evolved  and  given  to  the  world  is 


78  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

not  to  be  conceived  as  arbitrary,  or  without  reference  to 
their  inherent  adaptability  to  that  end.  The  Genius  of 
that  race,  if  I  may  so  speak,  was  religious.  Spiritual  in- 
sight dwelt  within  them  in  a  peculiar  degree,  and  rose  in 
their  exalted  Seers  to  an  open  vision  of  divine  reality. 
This  is  no  theory.  It  is  the  affirmation  of  facts.  Just  as 
certainly  as  the  genius  of  the  old  Roman  mind  gave  the 
world  the  highest  principles  of  civil  law  and  human  just- 
ice, and  the  Greek  mind  the  highest  principles  of  art,  just 
so  certainly  did  the  Jewish  mind,  inspired  of  Heaven,  give 
the  world  the  highest  conception  of  God  and  the  princi- 
ples of  religion.  Compare  the  great  religions  of  the  world, 
evolved  through  other  races,  with  the  Christianity  of 
Jesus,  the  ripe  fruit  of  the  long  growth  in  the  Jewish 
mind,  and  there  is  hardly  room  for  two  opinions  on  this 
point.  The  immeasurable  superiority  of  his  religion  will 
stand  confessed.  But  we  need  not  therefore  assume  the 
infallibility  of  every  inspired  mind.  The  Spirit  can  surely 
inspire  without  making  infallible.  It  would  be  regarded 
as  a  strange  absurdity  to  claim  that  God  could  not  aid  a 
man  at  all  to  do  right  without  making  him  perfect.  The 
Spirit  helps  the  African  Bushman,  no  doubt,  in  his  rude 
and  feeble  efforts  to  do  well  when  he  is  tempted  to  do  ill, 
but  that  help  does  not  make  him  an  angel.  God  does 
not  raise  the  newly-converted  savage  at  once  into  the 
keen  sense  of  holiness  felt  by  an  Edwards,  inheriting 
generations  of  Christian  culture.  Why  can  he  not  in- 
spire one  to  see  and  speak  the  truth  according  to  degree 


NATURE  AND   THE  BIBLE.  79 

of  capacity  without  making  one  infallible,  as  well  as  he 
can  aid  a  man  to  do  the  truth  without  raising  him  at 
once  to  perfection.  The  assumption  of  infallibility  in 
every  inspired  writer,  without  any  regard  to  his  stage  of 
knowledge  or  development,  has  been  the  source  of  infinite 
mistake  and  confusion.  It  seems  to  me  no  less  absurd 
than  to  claim  infallibility  for  the  Pope.  The  Scriptures 
set  up  no  such  claim  for  themselves.  They  plainly  and 
repeatedly  declare,  on  the  contrary,  that  their  earlier  por- 
tions were  imperfect;  that  they  contained  laws  given  on 
account  of  the  hardness  of  the  hearts,  or  rude  stage  of 
development  in  the  people ;  that  a  better  law  was  needed, 
because  the  earlier  was  not  perfect.  Why  press  a  claim 
for  them  which  they  explicitly  reject? 

It  will  appear,  then,  that  the  perfection  of  Revelation 
must  be  judged  by  the  final  result,  not  by  what  is  seen 
at  the  crude  beginning,  or  at  any  stage  of  its  unfinished 
progress.  We  look  to  Christ,  not  back  to  Moses,  for  the 
religion  God  meant  to  give  the  Avorld.  Is  Christ  what 
we  need?  That  is  the  only  question  we  have  to  settle. 
You  say  the  early  story  is  full  of  puerilities — the  eating 
of  a  forbidden  apple,  the  silly  doings  of  old  patriarchs,  the 
tedious  ceremonial  of  worship,  smearing  garments,  furni- 
ture, the  tip  of  the  right  ear  and  right  toe  with  blood,  the 
charm  attached  to  the  color,  age,  and  condition  of  the 
sacrifice  to  be  slain,  the  nice  specification  of  the  parts  to 
be  used,  the  burning  upon  the  altar,  as  if  God  were  a 
Leing  to  be  pleased  with  the  smell  of  roast  meat.  What 


80  A  SEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

nonsense,  you  say,  to  imagine  that  the  Almighty  ever 
demanded  or  stood  upon  snch  punctilios  of  form,  such 
child's  play,  as  these !  Enough  to  answer  that  the  race 
was  in  its  childhood.  Do  you  ask  the  gravity  and  wis- 
dom of  sixty  from  the  child  of  ten?  Will  the  learned  Pro- 
fessor despise  the  blocks  and  counters  and  letters  of  the 
Kindergarten  because  he  finds  them  no  longer  helpful  to 
his  studies?  Would  you  banish  Santa  Glaus,  and  toys, 
and  all  the  "puerilities"  of  Christmas  from  the  world 
because  you  have  grown  too  wise  to  find  any  use  or 
pleasure  in  such  trifles?  But  you  say,  "God  was  as  wise 
when  Moses  wrote  the  ceremonial  as  when  Jesus  preached 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount."  Certainly.  But  man  was 
not;  and  God  inspires  according  to  what  there  is  in  man 
to  be  inspired.  The  light  grows  with  capacity,  no  faster. 
Childlike  methods  for  childlike  minds — adaptation — that 
is  God's  law  of  educating  man,  as  it  is  the  true  law  of 
educating  everywhere.  Your  objection  strikes  creation 
just  as  hard  as  it  strikes  Revelation.  Take  one  of  the 
lower  forms  of  animal  life,  the  oyster,  for  example.  You 
turn  it  over  and  view  its  shapeless  rudeness  on  every  side, 
and  then  exclaim,  "  Could  an  all- wise  God  have  made 
such  a  thing  as  that,  and  with  the  perfect  idea  of  man  in 
mind?  Preposterous!"  But,  my  friend,  remember  that 
you  are  here  dealing  with  facts.  God  did  make  that 
thing,  if  he  ever  made  anything — made  it  with  the  per- 
fect idea  of  man  in  mind;  made  it  as  one  of  the  progres- 
sive steps  in  that  creative  order  by  which  he  was  advanc- 


NATURE  AND   THE  BIBLE.  81 

ing  toward  his  final  and  most  perfect  creature,  man. 
AVill  you  now  rule  God  out  of  creation  because  he  made  a 
mollusk  before  he  made  a  man? 

God's  progressive  creation  is  perfect  only  in  its  adapta- 
tions. He  fills  the  earth  with  happy  forms  of  life,  of  an 
increasingly  higher  organization,  just  as  fast  as  it  is  ready 
to  receive  them.  He  never  hurries  forward  a  sensitive 
life  into  conditions  that  would  torture  and  destroy.  -Its 
home  is  first  made  ready.  It  is  only  after  countless  gen- 
erations of  lower  creatures  have  enjoyed  their  day,  and 
unmeasured  ages  of  change  have  ripened  the  earth  for 
his  home,  that  man  appears.  If  he  had  come  earlier,  it 
would  have  been  only  to  perish.  God  knows  his  time. 
So  with  the  revelation  of  himself  in  the  Spirit.  His  Word 
just  keeps  pace  with  the  powers  of  man.  No  truth 
breaks  from  the  lips  of  seer,  lawgiver,  poet,  prophet,  or 
angel  from  heaven,  till  there  is  an  ear  to  hear,  and  squls 
ready  to  receive  and  preserve.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
lives  because  there  were  hearers  in  whom  it  could  live. 
Earlier  it  would  have  been  lost  on  the  air.  "  In  the  ful- 
ness of  time,"  Christ  came.  Earlier  he  could  have  founded 
no  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth.  The  perfection  of  the 
earlier  Revelation  was  in  its  adaptation  to  the  age  and  the 
people;  the  perfection  of  the  final  Revelation  is  in  its  suf- 
ficiency for  universal  man  at  his  best  attainment.  By 
that  let  it  be  judged. 

The  first  and  rudest  fish  was  the  prophecy  of  man,  says 
Agassiz.  The  first  and  rudest  man  was  the  prophecy  of 


82  A  SEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

Christ.  "The  seed  of  the  woman  shall  bruise  the  ser- 
pent's head."  The  higher  moral  and  spiritual  life  within 
him  shall  yet  bring  the  animal  nature  into  subjection. 
You  say  the  prophecy  is  dim.  So  was  the  prophecy  of 
man  in  the  fish.  But  the  patience  and  the  power  of  God 
brought  it  to  fulfillment.  Omnipotence  could  not  be  de- 
feated. The  creative  forces  could  not  stay  till  they  had 
reached  the  predetermined  end.  No  more  can  the  divine 
Wisdom  and  Love  stay  till  they  have  reached  the  perfect 
man.  The  moral  forces  move  under  the  same  irresistible 
Will  as  the  natural.  The  spiritual  evolution  will  as  cer- 
tainly complete  itself  as  the  material.  The  one  Creator  is 
in  both;  one  purpose  runs  through  all.  The  divine  ideal 
must  be  realized.  Behold  it  in  the  Christ — behold  THE 
MAN  !  And  in  him,  O  man,  discover  your  own  better  self. 
He  is  the  prophecy  of  what  humanity  was  created  to 
bacome.  Feel  the  inspiration  of  that  prophecy.  It  is  for 
you.  You  are  the  heir  of  all  the  creative  ages.  Head  of 
God's  creation,  Image  of  his  being,  gifted  with  the  powers 
of  eternal  progress,  it  rests  with  you  to  say  whether  you 
will  be  the  perfection  you  see  in  the  Christ.  In  the  early 
stage  of  the  moral  creation  now,  it  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  you  shall  be,  but  you  shall  be  like  Him,  if  you  will. 
God's  love  in  him  beckons  you  upward.  Let  every  day 
carry  you  higher — the  senses  mastered,  the  passions  con- 
quered, better  purposes  formed  and  fulfilled,  nobler  thoughts 
kindled,  nobler  aims  cherished,  Christ-like  deeds  done — s  > 
on  and  up  along  the  path  of  limitless  ascent. 


The  Human  Nature  of  Jesus. 


John  xiv:  6:  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the 
Life:  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me. 

The  human  soul,  groping  under  the  mysteries  of  life, 
needs  above  all  things  a  friend  and  guide  whom  it  may 
trust  absolutely.  It  is  a  child  crying  in  the  dark.  It  is 
away  from  home,  bewildered,  and  unable  to  find  its  way. 
You  and  I  need  no  other  witnesses  of  this  than  ourselves. 
Ten  thousand  times,  perplexed  with  questions  of  duty  or 
faith,  have  we  breathed  the  wish,  "  O  that  I  knew !  that 
some  one  would  tell  me  what  to  think  and  do,  so  as  to 
leave  on  me  no  tremor  of  doubt  or  hesitation!"  Our 
longing  in  such  moments  asks  the  questions  that  are  per- 
petual in  human  life.  Every  new  generation  repeats  them. 
The  intellect  ne.ver  relieves,  never  outgrows  this  perplexity. 
The  larger  human  knowledge  grows,  the  deeper  the  anxiety 
in  these  questions  of  faith  and  duty  in  religion.  Not  the 
savage,  but  the  wisest  of  thinkers,  puts  them  in  the  deep- 
est doubt  and  intensest  earnestness. 

Now  Jesus  comes  to  us,  to  the  race,  this  crying  child  in 
the  darkness,  and  says,  "Follow  me;  I  am  the  Way,  the 
Truth,  and  the  Life;  I  will  lead  you  home !  No  man  com- 
eth unto  the  Father  but  by  me."  Can  we  trust  him? 
There  are  millions  of  witnesses  to  testify  that  we  can ; 
that  when  we  yield  him  the  absolute  faith  he  invites,  we 


84  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

find  in  him  that  which  justifies  our  trust;  light  rises  on 
our  darkness;  our  questions  are  answered;  we  know  that 
we  have  found  our  way  home. 

I  invite  you  this  morning  to  join  me  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  his  life,  if  perhaps  we  may  discover  what  it  is  in 
him  that  inspires  this  confidence.  Is  it  the  instinct  of 
truth  in  all  souls  that  recognizes  in  him  the  true  Leader 
and  Head  of  humanity?  I  have  claimed  that  he  is  the 
perfect  Man.  Let  us  see  whether  our  view  of  him  will 
approve  this  claim?  If  a  Creator  and  Divine  Purpose  are 
in  that  evolution  of  life  from  the  lowest  form  up  to  man, 
which  we  trace  in  nature,  and  are  growingly  manifest  in 
that  new  course  of  intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual  evolu- 
tion, which  we  trace  in  human  history,  was  not  a  perfect 
man  to  have  been  expected?  Can  God's  self -manifestation 
stop  short  of  the  most  complete  expression  possible?  The 
faith  which  sees  God  as  present  in  nature  will  have  no 
sneer  for  such  a  question.  My  own  conviction  is  that  the 
scientific  historian  will  yet  recognize  facts  in  ancient  races 
of  men  which  will  make  it  clear  that  the  highest  form  of 
human  character  and  life  was  to  have  been  anticipated  to 
appear  among  the  people  of  the  Jews.  But  setting  aside 
such  considerations  for  the  present,  I  turn  your  attention 
to  the  Fact  that  has  appeared.  Well  might  we  with  the 
ancient  Cynic  go  forth  into  the  streets,  lighted  candle  in 
hand,  hi  quest  of  a  man,  if  the  search  only  promised  suc- 
cess. The  philosopher  would  have  been  less  laughed  at, 
perhaps,  if  the  tremendous  want  his  act  expressed  were 


THE   HUMAN   NATURE   OF  JESUS.  85 

only  felt.  A  perfect  man  is  the  highest  need  of  our  race. 
If  he  comes,  he  cannot  fail  to  be  the  light  of  the  world. 
In  the  fact  embodying  in  living  reality  before  our  eyes  all 
that  goes  to  make  up  a  perfect  humanity,  in  proportions 
that  exclude  defect,  we  see  what  we  ought  to  be,  what  are 
our  true  relations  to  God  and  to  our  fellow  men.  There 
is  the  reality.  The  whole  range  of  human  duty  is  illum- 
inated by  such  a  presence.  Conscience  responds  to  the 
light.  Virtue  realized,  impersonated,  lived,  binds  us  as  a 
law.  We  cannot  exclude  the  sense  of  obligation  to  be  the 
practical  worth  it  reveals.  Shape  ever  so  perfect  an  ideal 
in  words  and  it  bears  no  such  impression  to  the  conscience. 
It  is  a  fiction,  the  creation  of  some  brilliant  imagination. 
It  may  not  be  practicable.  The  critic  may  riddle  it  with 
his  censures.  It  cannot  speak  with  authority.  Place  the 
reality  of  perfection  before  us,  and  we  know  it  is  practi- 
cable. The  critic's  occupation  is  gone.  His  shafts  rebound 
and  drop  harmless  at  the  feet  of  a  flawless  integrity.  It 
speaks  with  the  authority  of  eternal  truth. 

I  do  not  propose  any  formal  argument  to  prove  the 
perfection  of  Jesus.  The  German  Dorner  and  the  Ameri- 
can Bushnell  have  attempted  this.  If  you  will  read  their 
words,  I  think  you  will  confess  their  strength.  But  argu- 
ments of  this  kind  depend  very  much  upon  the  hearer. 
His  moral  quality  and  prejudices  go  far  in  shaping  their 
impression.  The  personal  factor  is  a  large  one  in  the 
equation.  It  is  sure  to  appear  in  the  answer.  The  most 
irresistible  evidence  is  the  man  himself.  Perfection  needs 


86  A   REASONABLE    CHRISTIANITY. 

no  certificate.  It  commends  itself.  Virtue  is  the  strong- 
est argument  for  virtue.  The  best  sermon  on  living  is  a 
good  life.  And  it  is  to  this  instinctive  sense  of  perfection 
that  the  life  of  Jesus  appeals.  His  enemies  are  constrained 
to  confess  the  beneficence  of  his  deeds  and  the  marvelous 
symmetry  of  his  character.  The  fact  that  the  sharpest 
hostile  eyes,  after  a  search  of  eighteen  hundred  years,  have 
not  been  able  to  fix  a  material  blemish  upon  him,  is  one 
of  the  strangest  in  history.  His  astonishing  pretentions 
have  been  the  ground  of  the  most  serious  charge — and  it 
is  true  that  he  announces  aims  of  a  wider  scope,  looking  to 
an  empire  over  men  and  human  affairs  more  absolute  than 
military  conqueror  ever  conceived — yet  when  we  scrutin- 
ize those  aims,  we  find  them  of  such  a  nature,  and  pursued 
in  such  a  temper,  that  we  do  not  even  think  to  accuse  him 
of  egotism.  There  is  not  even  the  suggestion  of  a  selfish 
ambition  in  them.  The  empire  of  truth  in  the  soul  of  man 
is  what  they  contemplate,  and  we  would  as  soon  quarrel 
with  men  for  breathing  the  atmosphere  lest  they  should 
exhaust  the  supply,  as  set  up  a -serious  resistance  to  such 
purely  spiritual  claims. 

But  what  I  desire  you  to  especially  notice,  is  that  in 
spite  of  his  apparent  assumption  of  superiority,  and  with 
all  his  grandeur  of  character,  he  awakens  the  feeling  that 
we  can  and  ought  to  be  like  him.  His  character  is  imita- 
ble.  His  virtues  are  home  virtues.  What  he  does  is  done 
in  relations  to  God  and  man  that  are  common  to  us  all. 
We  are  moving  in  essentially  the  same  sphere  of  action. 


.     THE   HUMAN   NATURE   OF  JESUS.  87 

Our  duties,  not  in  particular  act  but  in  essential  spirit  and 
quality,  are  the  same  as  his.  We  can  speak  his  words. 
We  can  radiate  the  cheer  of  his  sympathy.  We  can  grow 
weary  in  ministries  to  the  sick  and  needy.  We  can  prac- 
tice his  forbearance.  We  can  deny  self  for  the  welfare  of 
others.  And  when  he  promises  his  disciples  that  they 
.shall  sit  on  the  throne  of  divine  power  with  him,  we  may 
well  feel  that  it  is  no  extravagance  of  enthusiasm  or  play 
of  rhetoric.  We  can  all  master  temptations  as  he  did,  if 
we  will.  We  can  all  get  the  victory  over  our  own  pas- 
sions— the  most  honorable  of  all  victories — "  Greater  is  he 
that  ruleth  his  own  spirit  than  he  that  taketh  a  city." 
We  can  all  put  on  the  royal  purple  of  a  divine  righteous- 
ness— a  royalty  that  turns  the  crown  of  the  greatest  em- 
pire of  earth  into  a  bauble  in  comparison.  The  kingdom 
he  promises  is  the  reign,  in  God,  over  self,  and  all  forms  of 
worldly  enslavement — a  throne  which  countless  millions 
can  share  as  well  as  one.  The  greatness  of  Jesus  is  avail- 
able to  us,  to  all.  It  is  wholly  on  the  plane  of  common 
life.  And  here,  if  I  mistake  not,  is  the  hiding  of  his  power 
over  men. 

But  you  say,  we  cannot  work  miracles.  No;  and  no 
matter !  What  part  of  the  following  him  which  he  invites 
would  working  miracles  be?  What  would  it  add  to  per- 
fection of  character  if  the  power  were  divinely  conferred 
on  us?  Jesus  made  very  little  of  his  own  miracles.  They 
were  but  an  incident  to  his  work.  He  deprecated  rather 
than  courted  public  notice  of  them.  He  knew  how  shal- 


88  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

low  all  the  impression  they  could  possibly  make  on  the 
moral  life  must  be.  His  real  greatness  seems  belittled  or 
obscured,  rather  than  enhanced,  by  dwelling  on  his  mira- 
cles. And  the  sooner  the  glamour  of  the  supernatural, 
which  the  reports  of  these  have  thrown  around  his  person, 
is  dispelled,  the  sooner  will  the  minds  of  men  turn  from 
what  is  essentially  insignificant  in  his  life,  a  factitious 
reputation,  to  what  he  really  was — a  greatness  which  be- 
littles all  miracles. 

We  may  imagine  that  if  men  could  see  in  Jesus  those 
special  forms  of  human  greatness  which  the  world  most 
admires,  it  would  greatly  increase  his  power  and  extend 
his  influence  in  human  affairs.  But  consider  where  this 
would  place  him  in  relation  to  your  real  need.  You  ad- 
mire the  military  hero.  The  poet  sings  his  exploits.  The 
historian  extols  his  genius.  When  he  comes  to  Oakland, 
you  close  your  shops,  and  stores,  and  offices,  and  decorate 
your  streets  and  houses  for  a  great  gala-day  in  honor  of 
him.  But  can  you  imitate  the  hero?  Does  his  life  an- 
swer your  deepest  questions?  Is  his  greatness  available 
for  your  want?  After  you  have  feted  and  feasted  him, 
and  seen  all  of  human  glory  that  his  life  can  reveal,  you 
go  home  to  find  yourself,  with  reference  to  your  life's 
doubts  and  duties,  just  where  you  were  before.  No  light 
on  your  darkness;  no  help  under  your  burdens.  So  with 
the  great  inventor  in  mechanics,  the  discoverer  in  science, 
the  thinker  in  philosophy,  the  poet,  orator,  or  statesman. 
These  may  amaze  you  with  the  displays  of  their  power, 


THE  HUMAN  NATUKE  OF  JESUS.  89 

but  the  more  their  greatness  makes  you  wonder,  the  far- 
ther is  it  from  your  want.  It  takes  them  out  of  your 
sphere.  They  cannot  be  your  leader.  You  cannot  follow 
them.  But  when  you  turn  to  Jesus  you  find  your  leader. 
You  can  follow  him.  His  qualities  are  thoroughly  human, 
and  quite  within  your  reach, — not  so  coldly  grand  that 
you  despair  of  ever  climbing  their  frosty  hights.  A  win- 
ning sense  of  faultlessness  comes  over  you  as  you  trace 
his  life.  His  virtues  are  divine;  yet  you  feel  that  it  is. 
within  the  compass  of  your  powers  to  transcribe  and  make 
them  your  own. 

And  the  simplest  view  we  can  take  of  him  will  best 
meet  the  wants  of  heart  and  life.  He  has  been  studied 
too  much  under  the  refracted  and  colored  light  coming 
through  some  ingenious  theory.  The  theorists  have  crea- 
ted an  imaginary  want  that  the  heart  does  not  really  feel, 
and  then  constructed  a  theoretical  Savior  to  meet  that 
want,  thus  turning  both  the  Savior  and  the  salvation  into 
fictions  of  their  imagination — as  when  they  tell  us  that 
our  sin  is  infinite  in  potential  evil,  hence  must  be  matched 
by  an  infinite  penalty ;  or  if  forgiven,  expiated  by  an  in- 
finite sacrifice,  even  the  very  Deity  incarnate;  all  of 
which  no  heart  would  have  ever  dreamed  as  its  real  want 
if  it  had  not  been  mystified  by  the  theory.  It  is  as  if  one 
should  come  to  us  in  a  cave  or  dark  room  and  insist  that 
we  must  accept  their  theory  of  light  before  we  could  en- 
joy the  benefit  and  blessing  of  the  rays  that  fall  from  the 
sun.  To  stop  over  the  theory  but  detains  us  from  action, 


90  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

and  postpones  the  benefit.  Come  out  into  the  sunshine! 
Never  mind  the  theory!  Let  one  tell  us  that  we  are 
spiritually  ignorant  and  dark,  and  need  a  teacher,  weak, 
and  need  a  helper,  sorrowful,  and  need  a  comforter,  sinful, 
and  need  some  one  who  can  lead  us  back  to  right  and 
duty  and  peace,  he  speaks  to  a  want  we  feel.  His  voice 
finds  an  echo  in  our  own  consciousness.  Let  us  study  the 
Man  of  Nazareth  as  he  moves  before  us  in  the  ordinary 
relations  of  life,  and  see  if  we  do  not  find  in  him  provision 
for  our  felt  need.  Come  into  the  sunshine! 

Look  at  him  in  his  religion.  A  perfect  man  will  stand 
perfect  in  his  relation  to  God.  He  cannot  ignpre  that  re- 
lation; can  neither  sink  below  nor  exaggerate  the  proper 
fervor  of  its  love  and  measure  of  its  service.  In  him  we 
should  see  what  is  the  normal  relation  of  every  soul  to 
God.  Those  who  assume  the  perfection  of  Jesus,  tin -re- 
fore,  would  naturally  approach  his  religion  as  a  sort  of 
holy  place,  a  "burning  bush,"  in  the  presence  of  which 
we  should  reverently  put  off  our  poor  human  modes  and 
stand  in  awe.  Yet  no  sense  of  a  ghostly  and  supernatural 
awfulness  falls  upon  us  as  we  see  him  in  his  inter-com- 
munion with  heaven.  He  rather  makes  us  feel  that  relig- 
ion is  the  native  element  of  man.  It  is  a  home  spirit. 
His  religion  is  so  thoroughly  human  and  on  a  level  with 
our  own  thoughts  and  feelings,  that  we  can  welcome  it  in 
the  household,  and  make  it  the  companion  of  our  business. 
It  was  a  first  truth  in  his  teaching  that  the  true  life  of 
man  is  in  God,  his  strength  in  simple  faith;  that  if  he 


THE  HUMAN  NATURE  OF   JESUS.  91 

would  be  entirely  himself,  or  know  the  truth,  he  must 
"  dwell  in  God  and  God  in  him,"  through  that  Spirit  that 
guides  into  all  truth.  His  own  life  was  this  teaching 
realized.  It  was  a  life  of  faith,  a  walking  with  God. 
While  we  are  apt  to  think  of  him  as  a  being  superior  to 
the  need  of  prayer,  I  believe  it  is  oftener  noted  of  him 
that  he  prayed,  than  of  any  other  character  named  in  the 
New  Testament.  Luke  tells  us  that  when  he  was  about 
to  utter  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  he  went  up  into  the 
mountain,  and  was  all  night  long  in  prayer.  Again,  "he 
was  alone  with  his  disciples  praying."  He  prays  at  the 
grave  of  Lazarus.  He  closes  his  dying  counsels  to  "  the 
Twelve  "  at  the  last  supper  with  a  prayer  that  reads  like 
a  face  to  face  talk  with  God.  Then  thrice  in  Gethsemane, 
thrice  again  on  the  cross,  do  we  hear  his  voice  in  prayer. 
On  every  occasion  that  presses  his  spirit  he  turns  to  God 
for  light  and  strength.  Indeed  he  walks,  through  the 
world  as  if  the  heavens  stood  open  above  him,  and  the 
angels  of  God  were  ever  visible  to  his  eye  ascending,  and 
descending  the  ladder  of  communication  between  earth 
and  heaven.  The  nearer  to  God  the  more  of  prayer,  is 
the  lesson  of  his  life.  Yet  there  is  no  trace  of  the  ascetic, 
the  monk,  in  him ;  no  hy^er-spiritualism,  no  strain  to  keep 
up  the  mood  of  devotion.  His  religion  sets  naturally 
upon  him.  He  does  not  abandon  the  world.  He  is  a  man 
among  men.  He  partakes  freely  of  the  good  cheer  of  the 
feasts  to  which  his  friends  invite  him,  with  never  a  hint 
or  suspicion  that  the  .temperate  enjoyment  of  such  good 


92  A  SEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

things  was  an  enemy  to  the  soul  or  the  foe  to  spirituality. 
The  most  divinely  spiritual  and  unworldly  of  all  religions, 
his  is  nevertheless  pre-eminently  for  this  earth,  for  man, 
for  all  men,  in  every  calling,  temptation,  or  condition  in 
life. 

Look  at  him  in  his  mighty  purpose  to  save  men  from 
evil  and  raise  them  to  a  divine  life — his  inauguration  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  among  men.  One  is  not  so  much 
struck  with  his  practical  benevolence — unceasing  provi- 
dence of  love  and  relief  to  all  forms  of  human  want  though 
his  life  was — as  with  a  certain  divine  exaltation  of  soul 
seen  in  him  in  his  feeling  toward  the  race.  His  majesty 
of  manhood  is  here  simply  Godlike.  It  is  the  bearing  of 
an  infinite  Patience  and  Love. 

There  is  danger  to  most  men  in  taking  up  a  work  of 
reform.  The  constant  dwelling  upon  some  aggravating 
shape  of  wickedness,  worries  the  temper.  Indignation 
grows  personal.  The  reformer  often  comes  to  hate  the 
sinner  rather  than  the  sin.  He  becomes  such  that  he 
needs  another  reformer  to  set  him  right.  Now  no  man 
ever  had  more  to  irritate  him  than  Jesus ;  yet  no  one  ever 
bore  a  sunnier  temper  in  the  very  radiance  of  prosperity 
and  human  favor.  Never  a  tone  of  petulance  in  his 
words,  no  vitriolic  sarcasm  flung  upon  the  bare  nerves  of 
the  erring;  no  flush  of  anger  in  his  face;  no  spasmodic 
outburst  of  rage  that  would  brush  away  wrong-doers  as  if 
they  were  worthless  and  annoying  insects,  with  one 
wrathful  sweep  of  the  arm.  His  self-possession  is  never 


.     THE   HUMAN   NATURE   OF   JESUS.  93 

ruffled.  When  his  indignation  does  flash  forth,  it  is  as 
purely  impersonal  as  the  feelings  of  the  judge  in  sentenc- 
ing the  criminal.  Toward  those  who  err  in  judgment,  or 
sin  through  weakness,  he  shows  a  patience  and  tenderness 
that  speaks  the  mother  toward  her  erring  children,  rather 
than  the  hard  censor  of  evil-doers. 

His  sublime  steadfastness  in  his  aims  for  human  wel- 
fare is  equally  noteworthy.  There  is  no  source  of  inspi- 
ration and  strength  for  a  good  purpose  struggling  with 
obstacles  like  this  granite  immovability  seen  in  him. 
Those  who  take  any  great  interest  of  humanity  on  their 
hearts  must  expect  to  have  the  moral  force  and  stamina 
in  them  tried  to  the  utmost.  If  they  anticipate  popular 
favor  and  an  easy  time,  they  had  better  not  begin.  We 
see  society  full  of  discouraged  reformers  and  despondent 
workers  for  truth  and  human  progress.  They  are  found 
in  our  churches,  our  Sunday-schools,  our  temperance  so- 
cieties, our  benevolent  organizations,  our  good  causes  of 
every  name — as  they  have  ever  been  found,  thick  as  sum- 
mer butterflies  that  turn  to  autumn  skeletons,  in  every 
good  cause  that  has  fought  its  way  through  indifference 
and  obloquy  to  triumph  and  honor.  They  mean  well — 
these  disheartened  righteous !  their  sympathies  are  in  the 
right  direction;  but  their  hearts  are  not  stout  in  truth 
and  love.  Social  prejudices  are  so  perverted  and  so  in- 
veterate, men  are  so  willfully  blind,  antagonists  are  so 
unreasonable,  the  friends  of  the  right  way  are  so  luke- 
warm and  so  fickle,  they  conclude  it  is  of  no  use,  and  they 


94  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

had  as  well  give  up.  Many  a  Christian  minister,  with 
Christ's  Gospel  in  his  hands,  sometimes  finds  himself  verg- 
ing on  this  mood.  But  if  ever  he  feels  how  little  real  man 
there  is  in  him,  what  a  thin,  breeze-shaken  reed  he  is,  it 
will  be  when  he  notices  this  feeling  rising  in  himself  and 
then  turns  to  the  life  of  Jesus.  There  he  sees  one  strug- 
gling with  difficulties  compared  with  which  his  are  but  an 
ant-heap  to  the  Sierras,  unfaltering  through  every  reverse, 
gathering  new  force  out  of  the  very  conditions  of  despair, 
and  all  because  he  has  a  manhood  large  enough  to  grasp 
and  feel  the  divinity  there  is  in  the  truth,  and  the  possi- 
bilities that  slumber  in  erring  human  souls — all  because  he 
laved  men  well  enough  to  make  him  so  great.  He  stands 
with  the  truth,  come  favor  or  come  ruin.  Before  that 
sight  one  grows  ashamed  of  his  littleness  and  vacillation, 
and  even  greedy  of  self-sacrifice  for  the  truth's  sake.  His 
great  love,  unconquerable  in  its  hopefulness,  threw  over 
the  weak  and  sinful  the  glory  of  their  possible  future  in 
the  grace  of  God,  and  veiled  in  light  the  imperfections 
that  clung  around  them  for  the  moment.  Not  as  they 
are  does  he  see  them,  distorted  with  passion  and  stained 
with  sin,  but  radiant  in  the  beauty  of  holiness  under  the 
light  of  the  great  White  Throne.  Nothing  can  daunt  his 
courage  or  damp  his  ardor.  Persecution  is  his  opportunity ; 
reverses  but  stimulate  him ;  defeat  itself  turns  to  victory 
for  him.  We  all  know  how  the  mettle  of  a  man  comes 
out  when  his  great  plans  meet  rebuff,  and  the  world  turns 
cold.  Weak  men  will  then  lie  down  and  whine.  Even 


I 

.    THE   HUMAN   NATURE   OF  JESUS.  95 

strong  men,  unless  they  be  divinely  strong,  will  turn 
silent.  The  mighty  Napoleon,  conscious  that  his  vast 
schemes  of  ambition  had  nothing  in  them  that  men  could 
wish  immortal,  and  had  met  their  death-blow,  went  stag- 
gering through  the  darkness  towards  Paris  after  his 
Waterloo,  cursing  his  star  that  had  shed  baleful  influence 
on  the  day,  to  live  henceforth  the  morose,  complaining  life, 
and  at  last  to  die  the  miserable  death  of  a  disappointed 
and  defeated  man.  Jesus  sees  the  crowd  drop  suddenly 
away  at  a  saying  of  his  too  radical  for  their  traditional 
prejudices,  to  feel  keenly  the  desertion,  no  doubt;  to  re- 
member that  his  enemies  will  exult  at  this  defection,  and 
hasten  to  call  the  notice  of  the  world  to  what  a  mushroom 
excitement  his  movement  is  showing  itself  to  be,  and  to 
what  insignificance  his  following  has  already  dwindled; 
but  to  manifest  no  sign  of  despondency,  or  chagrin,  or 
wavering  in  his  purpose.  He  sorrowfully  turns  to  the  few 
who  knew  him  best  and  asks,  "Will  ye  also  go  away?'' 
Gaining  a  reply  of  faithful  adherence  from  them,  he  goes  on 
in  his  work  as  calmly  and  firmly  as  if  all  the  multitude  and  all 
the  world  were  with  him.  And  when  the  rabble  that  were 
but  yesterday  shouting  their  "  Hosannah  to  the  Son  of  Da- 
vid !"  wishing  to  thrust  a  crown  upon  his  head,  turn  suddenly 
around  to-day  and  cry  just  as  clamorously,  "Crucify  him, 
crucify  him ! "  he  faces  their  anger,  and  marches  bravely 
on  to  his  cross,  knowing  that  his  designs,  built  on  immor- 
tal truth,  will  live  all  the  more  that  his  life  fails  a  sacri- 
fice. 


* 

96  A   REASONABLE  CHIUSTIANITY. 

View  him  in  the  light  he  sheds  on  humble  position 
The  marvel  is  not  that  he  began  in  a  carpenter's  shop  and 
rose  to  a  commanding  station — it  is  that  Re  was  born,  and 
lived,  and  ended  life  without  once  attaining  a  position  that 
gave  him  influence  by  reason  of  the  honor  in  which  that 
position  is  held  among  men,  and  yet  sent  forth  from  his 
lowliness  a  power  upon  the  world  such  as  history  has 
never  felt  from  any  other  single  life.  Men  are  prone  to 
attribute  their  failures  or  their  personal  insignificance  to 
external  circumstances.  "Ah  me!"  they  sigh,  "if  I  only 
had  the  money  of  my  neighbor  who  lives  in  the  palace  on 
the  hill,  I  would  make  this  arid  desert  of  a  world  about 
me  bloom  like  a  garden.  It  is  poverty  that  crushes  me 
down.  Poverty  is  the  coffin  of  my  buried  aspirations ! " 
But  here  is  an  example  that  throws  suspicion  on  this  com- 
plaint. Did  Jesus  have  the  money  of  your  neighbor  on 
the  hill?  Did  he  count  life  worthless  or  bare  of  opportu- 
nity because  he  was  so  poor  that  he  had  not  where  to  lay 
his  head?  Did  he  give  up  trying  to  do  God's  good  work 
because  he  could  not  rival  Pilate  or  Herod  or  Caesar  in 
the  splendor  of  his  retinue  and  establishment?  As  you 
observe  the  peculiar  power  that  streams  forth  from  his 
life,  will  it  not  dawn  upon  you  that  possibly  the  poverty 
of  which  you  complain  as  crushing  you  down  may  be  the 
very  circumstance  which  puts  you  at  an  advantage?  You 
cannot  depend  on  wealth  or  social  eminence  for  your  in- 
fluence. Very  well;  the  influence  that  emanates  from 
these  is  rarely  of  a  deep  spiritual  quality.  Make  yours 


THE  HUMAN  NATURE   OF  JESUS.  97 

the  power  that  streams  from  the  heart  to  the  heart  in  the 
living  flow  of  duty  and  love,  and  you  will  discover  that 
God  has  made  tlie  man  to  be  more  than  his  wealth  or 
position.  The  life  of  Jesus  was  surely  no  failure  because 
he  had  not  large  sums  of  money  to  take  care  of,  nor  the 
petty  annoyances  of  rank  or  honors  heaped  on  lofty  sta- 
tion to  take  up  his  time.  The  true  man,  in  the  might  of 
the  in-dwelling  God,  lays  his  hand  on  adverse  circum- 
stances and  asserts  his  superiority  to  all  external  disad- 
vantages. Jesus  demonstrates  that  power  is  not  in  the 
surroundings  but  in  the  man. 

Look  at  him  on  the  cross.  A  perfect  man  in  suffering! 
The  sight  would  at  first  seem  to  impeach  both  the  justice 
and  the  goodness  of  God.  Suffering  is  the  penalty  of  sin, 
we  say;  yet  here  is  one  suffering  beyond  the  measure  of 
mortal  agony,  who  is  claimed  to  be  "without  sin."  What 
does  this  mean?  Set  aside  theory,  and  let  the  light  of 
experience  and  universal  fact  fall  on  the  sufferer,  and  you 
will  see  what  it  means.  Is  it  not  a  fact  as  wide  as  sinless 
human  goodness  that  the  purest  love  suffers  for  its  un- 
worthy loved — the  reformer  and  philanthropist  for  his 
degraded  wards,  the  friend  for  his  fallen  friend,  the  mother 
for  her  wild,  self -ruining  scapegrace  of  a  boy?  The  more 
saintly  the  innocence  and  purity,  the  keener  will  be  the 
pain.  The  nobler  and  stronger  and  more  divinely  endur- 
ing the  love,  the  greater  will  be  its  sacrifices,  the  more 
will  it  express  itself  in  painful  effort  voluntarily  under- 
taken in  behalf  of  its  objects.  Strange  fact!  The  very 


98  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

intensity  of  love  laying  the  good  and  the  holy  in  this  evil 
world  under  the  moral  necessity  of  the  sharpest  suffering ! 
Strange  to  our  earthly  moods  and  selfish  estimates  of  life's 
ends  and  uses;  but  not  strange  to  a  divinely  taught  heart. 
Ask  this  suffering  love  whether  it  wants  any  cold, 
calculating  questions  of  justice  raised  in  its  case.  Would  it 
love  less  that  it  might  surfer  less?  Would  the  philanthro- 
pist be  a  lower  style  of  man  that  he  might  feel  less  keenly 
the  miseries  and  follies  of  our  human  condition?  Would 
the  mother  have  her  heart  die  toward  her  unworthy  boy, 
that  she  might  be  spared  her  yearning  struggles  and 
prayers  and  weepings?  Oh,  insult  not  a  holy  love  with 
such  questions !  It  would  shudder  to  think  of  descend- 
ing to  be  lower  or  less  than  it  is,  though  to  remain  and 
rise  were  to  surfer  a  thousand  times  more.  Such  a  love 
feels  a  worth  in  itself  that  is  not  to  be  balanced  against 
any  degree  of  pain.  A  sense  of  its  own  divineness  and 
immortal  life  makes  it  strong  to  endure.  It  detects  the 
shallowness  and  selfishness  of  the  error  that  says  pain  is  to 
punish  sin;  it  learns  from  its  own  heart  that  the  object 
for  which  a  good  God  has  appointed  suffering  is  to  rescue 
and  raise  up  the  sinner.  There  is  something  besides  a 
hard-faced  justice  to  be  satisfied;  its  own  yearning  good- 
ness demands  the  privilege  of  sacrifice  that  the  fallen  may 
be  restored  and  become  "  partakers  of  the  divine  Holi- 
ness." Love  must  impart  its  gift.  It  cannot  look  upon 
the  perishing  that  lack  yet  might  receive,  and  remain  at 
rest.  It  must  go  forth  along  whatever  path  of  thorns 


THE   HUMAN  NATURE  OF   JESUS.  99 

leads  to  the  end,  that  it  may  bear  to  them  God's  gift  of 
life. 

This  is  the  meaning  of  the  sufferings  of  Jesus.  They 
speak  a  love  that  could  not  withhold,  but  must  go  forth 
to  "seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost,"  "to  save  his 
people  from  their  sins;"  by  its  own  self-expression  to  in- 
spire in  the  saved  its  own  life,  and  in  that  fact  make 
them  partakers  of  God's  holiness.  The  cross  is  the  key  to 
the  mystery  of  human  pain.  For  although  there  is  much 
suffering  that  is  involuntary,  and  does  not  rise  from  love 
to  others,  yet  its  end  in  God's  appointment  is  the  same. 
It  is  to  teach  men  the  supreme  value  God  places  on  spir- 
itual good,  holiness  of  character.  It  is  to  bring  men  into 
the  same  estimate;  and  when  accepted  in  love  never  fails 
to  bring  forth  "fruits  unto  holiness  and  the  end,  ever- 
lasting life."  We  often  complain  of  the  injustice  of 
Providence.  We  say  we  suffer  more  than  we  deserve, 
It  was  but  yesterday  that  one  said  to  me,  "  In  pearly  life 
and  for  many  years,  I  was  prosperous  and  happy.  I  had 
enough  of  this  world's  goods.  Life  went  smoothly  with 
me.  But  a  brief  illness  was  followed  by  paralysis ;  and 
here  I  am,  a  helpless  cripple ;  pain  never  lets  go ;  sleepless 
nights  followed  by  suffering  days,  and  suffering  days 
leading  on  to  worse-suffering  nights;  my  money  gone; 
my  plans  defeated;  my  hopes  blasted;  nothing  in  pros- 
pect but  one  dreary  waste  of  suffering  and  want;  and  yet 
I  live  on.  Why  can  I  not  die?  I  find  it  hard  to  believe 
there  is  a  God  while  I  am  doomed  to  suffer  in  this  way." 


100  A   IlEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

Bitter  indeed  seemed  the  lot  of  that  sufferer.  I  could  only 
reply  from  the  cross:  "Is  your  life  blasted?  Is  the  great 
end  for  which  you  are  here  on  God's  fair  earth  certainly 
defeated?  Think  of  some  who  have  never  met  your  mis- 
fortune. Prosperity  continues  unbroken.  Health  never 
wavers.  Life  runs  smoothly.  They  have  more  than  heart 
could  wish.  But  as  life  goes  on,  what  do  they  become? 
Pampered  pets  of  the  world;  sleek,  comfortable  animals, 
too  often;  with  never  a  thought  for  the  soul;  never  an 
aspiration  towards  a  diviner  life.  And  when  they  come 
to  the  end,  look  at  what  they  are,  what  their  favored  life 
has  made  of  them.  Would  you  change?  You  would  not 
be  they  for  a  thousand  worlds !  What  they  miss  you  may 
have  in  spite  of  your  pains,  may  by  the  help  of  your  pains, 
through  trust  in  God.  Think  not  your  life  is  blasted;  its 
main  good,  its  only  good  that  would  not  soon  perish  at  the 
longest,  is  still  within  your  reach.  Accept  the  pain  that 
must  be,  as  Christ  accepted  his  cross,  and  having  suffered 
with  him  you  shall  reign  with  him."  As  this  thought 
came  like  a  divine  revelation  to  the  sufferer,  a  new  light 
suddenly  rested  on  that  pain- weary  face,  and  the  suffer- 
ings which  had  been  such  a  black  mystery  seemed  glori- 
fied. We  shall  never  complain  that  we  suffer  more  than 
we  deserve  when  we  stand  under  the  light  of  the  cross. 

So,  finally,  view  this  one  who  comes  to  you  and  offers 
himself  as  a  Leader  and  Friend  in  the  darkness  of  life  in 
every  possible  aspect.  Compare  him  with  all  others  who 
have  claimed  to  do  the  world  the  same  service;  know  the 


THE   HUMAN   NATURE   OF   JESUS.  101 

best  that  each  can  do  for  you ;  concede  freely  all  the  good 
there  is  in  them ;  and  then  say  if  your  highest  reason  does 
not  compel  you  to  admit  that  Jesus  stands  peerless  in  the 
manifest  glory  of  his  excellence;  see  if  your  heart  will  not 
respond  to  his  claims,  "  Oh  thou  Son  of  Man  and  Son  of 
God,  let  others  choose  whom  they  will,  but  be  Thou  my 
heart's  Leader  and  Lord,  and  let  it  be  my  dear  privilege 
to  follow  thee,  though  it  be  with  distant  and  faltering 
step,  along  the  path  of  suffering  an<"l  love  which  thou  hast 
trod,  leading  unto  everlasting  life. 


The  Divinity  of  Jesus. 

John  xiv:  9:  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father.  John  x:  30: 
I  and  my  Father  are  one. 

We  speak  of  this  world  as  the  home  of  man;  but  we 
shall  never  dwell  in  it  with  any  proper  appreciation  of  its 
significance,  until  we  learn  to  see  it  in  the  manifestation 
of  God.  Man  is  never  at  home  until  he  "  sees  the  Father  " 
as  the  Builder  of  the  house  for  him.  To  see  the  creation 
and  not  see  the  Creator  is  to  look  upon  a  dead  mechanism 
and  imagine  it  to  be  greater  than  the  inventor.  The  brute 
crops  the  grass  and  sees  nothing  better  in  the  sod  from 
which  it  springs.  The  man  who  lives  of  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  and  sees  nothing  but  matter  and  its  forces  as  their 
origin,  is  hardly  above  the  brute  in  the  dignity  of  his 
thought.  Not  to  feel  a  throbbing  Heart  under  the  ribs  of 
nature,  not  to  recognize  a  thinking  Mind  in  her  order,  not 
to  trace  an  intelligent  purpose  in  her  ongoings  and  results, 
is  to  miss  the  chief  significance  of  her  works.  It  is  to 
study  nature  as  one  dissects  a  corpse — after  that  which  is 
of  supreme  interest,  the  life,  the  soul,  is  gone  out  of  it. 
Matter  would  be  a  lifeless  lump,  and  all  the  motions  of 
nature  but  the  random  play  of  insensate  forces,  if  God 
were  not  in  them. 

But  once  look  upon  creation  as  the  manifestation  of 
God,  and  you  are  in  the  way,  if  I  have  learned  rightly,  to 
the  true  interpretation  of  the  Life  and  Person  of  Jesus — 


THE   CROWN  OF  CREATION.  103 

of  the  claim  he  asserts  that  he  is  one  with  the  Father,  and 
that  to  sfee  him  is  to  see  the  Father.  This  is  simply  the 
claim  that  he  is  the  fulness  of  that  manifestation  of  God 
which  we  see  opening  more  and  more  clearly  throughout 
the  whole  course  of  creation.  He  is  the  consummate 
flower  and  fruit  of  the  whole  growth  of  nature,  and  of 
moral  and  spiritual  life  on  our  earth.  He  is  the  highest 
'  and  completest  manifestation  of  God  that  man  can  see  or 
comprehend.  Let  us  see  if  this  cannot  be  made  to  ap- 
pear. 

One  fact  strikes  the  student  of  nature,  as  he  reads  the 
history  of  creation  written  in  the  strata  of  the  earth,  as 
significant  beyond  every  other — the  fact  of  progress.  Na- 
ture begins  in  chaos  and  advances  to  the  cosmos.  She 
starts  with  the  lowest  forms  of  life  and  rises  by  gradual 
steps  to  the  highest.  To  trace  these  steps  is  the  work  and 
the  wonder  of  science.  Beginning  with  the  moner,  or 
primitive  germ  of  life,  the  advance  is  through  ascending 
classes,  orders,  families,  genera  and  species,  till  man  crowns 
and  completes  the  physical  series.  There  are  stationary 
forms,  degenerate  forms,  even  lower  branches  that  nature 
suffers  to  die  and  drop  off  altogether  from  the  growing 
tree  of  physical  life;  but  there  is  a  central  stem  that  ever 
continues  to  rise.  In  man  begins  a  new  creation — moral 
and  spiritual.  This  is  characterized  by  the  same  law  of 
growth.  Beginning  in  the  lowest  savage,  it  advance? 
through  various  forms  and  grades  of  cultivated  humanity 
until  it  culminates  in  the  highest  example  of  moral  and 


104  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

spiritual  life  that  appears  along  the  range  of  history. 
Here  again  there  are  stationary  races,  cases  of  arrested 
growth,  like  the  Chinese,  degenerate  races,  like  the  Greeks 
and  Arabs,  dead  and  buried  civilizations,  like  the  ancient 
Egyptians  and  Phoenicians;  but  there  was  one  ancient 
stock  whose  growth  can  be  traced  from  a  very  humble 
origin  through  a  marvelous  course  of  development,  till  it 
gave  the  world  One  whose  peculiar  and  peerless  person- 
ality and  influence  on  human  character  and  history  have 
constrained  the  purest  and  loftiest  minds  of  other  races  to 
confess  him  to  be  the  impersonation  of  all  excellence  in 
moral  and  spiritual  life — the  Perfection  of  the  new  crea- 
tion. 

Now  if  we  are  to  recognize  a  Creator  in  creation,  if  we 
are  to  say  that  this  earth  is  a  manifestation  of  God,  it  is 
impressively  apparent  that  He  is  increasingly  manifest  in 
the  progress  we  have  traced.  More  and  more  of  God  is 
seen  in  these  rising  grades  of  life  beneath  man;  more  and 
more  of  God  is  revealed  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  of 
humanity,  in  the  succeeding  higher  types  of  men  which 
the  study  of  history  brings  to  view.  Then  but  admit  that 
Jesus  is  the  grandest  and  divinest  of  men — as  Renan  and 
Parker  and  Emerson  agree  that  he  is — and  do  you  not  by 
that  admission  confess  in  him  the  highest  manifestation  of 
God  that  has  appeared  on  our  earth  ?  Study  him  under 
the  severest  scrutiny,  and  can  you  refuse  to  acknowledge 
in  his  manifest  superiority,  if  not  absolute  perfection,  his 
moral  supremacy  among  men?  For  one,  I  am  satisfied 


THE  CROWN  OF   CREATION.  105 

/ 

that  the  facts  which  may  be  gathered  from  the  ancient 
records  of  human  life,  combined  with  the  view  of  THE 
MAN,  furnish  a  moral  demonstration  that  places  him  at 
the  head  of  the  human  race,  as  conclusive  as  the  scientific 
demonstration  that  man  physical  stands  at  the  head  of 
the  lower  orders  of  creation. 

The  Scriptures,  then,  have  made  no  mistake  in  exalting 
him  to  the  leadership  of  humanity.  This  thought  seems 
to  have  possessed  the  Apostle  Paul  especially  like  a  pas- 
sion. To  him  Jesus  was  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh ;" 
"  The  image  of  the  invisible  God,  the  first-born  of  every 
creature;" — the  image,  as  being  the  consummate  mani- 
festation of  God;  the  First-born  of  every  creature,  not  in 
time,  of  course,  but  in  the  idea  of  God,  the  final  end  of  his 
creative  self-manifestation.  Again  he  says  of  Jesus,  "God 
gave  him  to  be  Head  over  all  things  to  the  church;"  and 
again  that  it  was  the  Divine  purpose  "  To  gather  together 
(original,  head  together),  in  one  all  things  in  Christ,  both 
which  are  in  heaven  and  which  are  on  earth."  The  intu- 
itions of  the  Apostle's  faith  thus  caught  the  vision  of  the 
mightiest  fact  of  creation ;  saw  and  felt  the  divine  dignity 
in  Jesus,  by  virtue  of  which  he  is  the  head  of  humanity. 
If  I  am  not  deceived,  nature  and  history  will  ere  long 
confirm  this  insight  of  faith  with  impregnable  demonstra- 
tion. In  that  demonstration,  Science  and  Faith  will  join 
hands,  never  again  to  raise  them  in  warfare  against  each 
other. 

Another  law  observed  in  this  unfolding  manifestation 


106  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

of  God  is  deeply  suggestive.  The  close  scientific  study  of 
this  progressive  creation  discovers  that  every  higher 
form  that  appears  epitomizes  in  its  own  structure  and 
contents  all  the  forms  below  itself.  That  is  to  say,  along 
with  some  new  distinctive  quality  that  ranks  it  as  higher, 
it  contains  within  itself  all  the  elements  that  go  to  make 
up  the  lower  grades.  The  rock  embodies  all  that  is  in  the 
clod,  and  holds  it  together  in  a  firmer  cohesion.  The 
crystal  contains  all  that  is  in  the  rock,  combined  under 
some  beautiful  law  of  arrangement  not  seen  in  the  rock. 
The  vegetable  contains  the  same  coarse  matter  as  the  clod 
and  the  rock  and  the  crystal,  but  deftly  woven  into  an 
organism  by  a  principle  we  call  life,  more  wonderful  far 
than  the  law  which  arranges  the  constituent  particles  of 
the  crystal.  The  body  of  the  animal,  again,  contains 
gross  matter  akin  to  dust,  and  also  the  vital  principle,  the 
same  as  the  vegetable,  but  added  to  these,  even  in  the 
lowest  forms,  a  marvelous  something  we  call  instinct, 
which  more  than  life,  if  possible,  baffles  all  our  analysis 
and  science.  And  the  more  complex  and  highly  organ- 
ized animal  structures,  from  the  polyp  up  to  man,  ever 
include  in  themselves  all  the  elements  of  matter  and  struc- 
ture found  in  the  forms  below  themselves.  Man  has  an 
organic,  living  body  and  instinct  like  the  animal,  but 
joined  mysteriously  with  these,  and  rising  immeasurably 
above  them,  he  bears  the  divine  endowment  of  reason. 
In  this  is  included  a  judgment  that  can  discriminate  the 
good  from  the  evil,  the  right  from  the  wrong,  and  a  con- 


THE  CROWN  OF  CREATION.  107 

science  which  can  feel  obligation.  A  creature  has  now 
appeared  that  can  know  himself,  and  in  himself  the  image 
of  God  and  the  God  whom  his  image  reflects.  He  is  the 
epitome  of  creation,  representing  the  whole  in  himself  all 
the  way  up  from  the  clod  to  the  rational  soul. 

It  will  be  obvious  to  a  little  reflection  that  the  moral 
and  spiritual  creation  is  pervaded  by  the  same  law  as  the 
natural.  The  higher  include  the  lower.  In  the  rising 
types  of  character,  each  nobler  man  cannot  fail  to  com- 
bine in  living  illustration  all  the  virtues  of  those  below 
himself.  If,  therefore,  it  be  true  that  in  all  the  qualities 
that  make  man  divine  Jesus  stands  as  the  preeminent 
man,  it  is  apparent  by  this  law  of  assimilation  and  inclu- 
sion that  he  epitomizes  and  carries  higher  in  his  own  per- 
son the  whole  manifestation  of  God  in  creation.  By 
another  line  of  evidence  we  have  thus  come  to  the  same 
conclusion  with  Paul's  faith.  As  we  have  heard  the 
naturalist  Oken,  with  this  very  law  in  view,  exclaim, 
"  Man  is  the  sum  total  of  all  the  animals,"  so  we  hear  the 
apostle  asserting  with  an  equally  startling  boldness,  that 
Jesus  is  "  The  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily."  That  is, 
he  is  the  completeness  of  the  Divine  manifestation  in  na- 
ture and  in  man.  In  his  human  body  he  represents  the 
entire  physical  creation ;  in  his  spirit  the  entire  moral  and 
spiritual  creation;  and  thus  crowns  and  perfects  the  mani- 
festation of  God. 

If  the  view  now  presented  be  correct,  it  will  be  apparent 
at  once  that  Jesus  is  no  afterthought  or  side-thought  of 


108  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

God,  brought  in  upon  the  course  of  evolution  by  miracle 
or  separate  divine  act.  He  is  seen  as  the  final  end  and 
realization  of  God's  aim  in  the  long  progress  of  self -revela- 
tion. We  may  regard  nature  and  man  as  a  system  of 
object  lessons  through  which  God  is  revealing  as  much  of 
Himself  as  can  be  revealed  outwardly  to  the  human  soul 
Jesus  then  will  appear  by  virtue  of  what  he  is  seen  to  be 
as  the  supreme  manifestation  of  God.  .  And  when  the 
theologians  will  consent  to  see  him  thus,  as  the  crowning 
fact  of  creation  or  evolution,  rising  out  of  the  creative 
forces  that  have  been  at  work  from  the  beginning,  an 
integral  and  inseparable  part  of  the  system,  illuminating 
the  whole  by  opening  tc  view  in  unspeakable  grandeur 
the  design  and  meaning  of  the  whole,  they  will  have  an 
argument  for  his  divine  supremacy  over  the  race  as  much 
more  conclusive  than  tliDse  upon  which  they  have  hitherto 
relied,  as  it  is  nearer  to  God's  known  and  visible  methods 
of  working.  We  cannot  cut  out  and  set  aside  a  part  or 
section  in  the  system  of  nature  through  which  God  is 
manifesting  himself,  and  put  in  its  place  some  puny  de- 
vice of  our  own.  What  is  put  in  by  miracle  we  can 
imagine  away  without  breaking  the  continuity  of  the 
whole;  but  what  comes  in  by  growth  or  evolution  holds 
its  place  by  virtue  of  eternal  law.  No  more  can  we  cut 
off  and  set  aside  the  Crown  and  Head,  and  make  it  good 
by  any  human  substitute.  As  well  attempt  to  put  out 
the  Sun  and  substitute  the  electric  light.  Man  is  not 
competent  for  the  work  of  God ;  and  the  work  of  God  ap- 


THE  CROWN   OF   CREATION.  109 

proves  its  origin  by  its  divine  greatness.  The  eternal 
forces  of  God,  working  in  nature,  place  Jesus  at  the  head 
of  creation  and  of  men;  and  you  must  reverse  the  work 
of  God,  the  very  order  of  nature,  before  you  can  unthrone 
him. 

And  do  we  miss  anything  from  the  fulness  and  au- 
thority of  God's  revelation  in  thus  seeing  in  Jesus  a  part, 
and  the  perfection,  of  the  whole  system?  The  Christian 
evolutionist  sees  God  in  the  creation  of  man  by  the  long 
growth  from  the  lowest  form  of  life  just  as  distinctly,  and 
with  fewer  embarrassing  questions,  as  when  he  thought  of 
the  first  man  as  shaped  from  the  clay  of  the  earth  by  the 
mechanical  act  of  God  within  twelve  hours.  So  the 
Christian  believer  will  see  God  in  the  Christ,  regarded  as 
the  final  and  highest  result  of  moral  and  spiritual  evolu- 
tion, just  as  fully  and  clearly,  and  with  far  fewer  chilling 
shadows  upon  his  reason  and  heart,  as  when  he  viewed 
him  as  a  separate  and  miraculous  attachment  to  the  mani- 
festation of  God  in  nature  and  man.  He  sees  in  him  the 
Father,  and  finds  in  him  the  way  home.  It  is  only  a 
mild  form  of  Atheism  in  the  guise  of  Christian  faith, 
failing  to  recognize  God  as  ever  present  in  nature,  really 
seeing  him  in  nothing  at  all,  that  insists  on  a  mechanical 
creation  of  man  and  a  miraculous  Christ  before  it  will  see 
God  in  either. 

We  should  find  small  edification  now  in  entering  into 
the  long  debate  which  has  rag«d  for  sixteen  centuries  in 
the  Christian  church  between  those  who  teach  the  su- 


110  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

preme  Deity  of  Jesus  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  who  hold 
his  creature  dependence  on  the  other,  between  those  who 
insist  on  his  essential  oneness  of  Personality  with  the 
Father,  and  those  who  claim  that  the  unity  is  only  of 
spirit  and  purpose,  between  those  who  address  an  adoring 
worship  to  him  as  equal  with  the  Father,  and  those  who 
denounce  such  worship  as  addressed  to  a  creature,  and 
therefore  as  essential  idolatry.  Our  view  simply  sets 
aside  the  controversy  as  nearly  meaningless.  The  dis- 
putants set  out  from  some  baseless  assumptions  among 
their  fundamental  data,  and  hence  have  ever  found  it 
impossible  to  reach  a  stable  and  satisfactory  conclusion. 
We  say  that  the  Supreme  Deity  comes  forth  from  the 
mystery  of  the  infinite  into  his  supreme  manifestation  in 
Jesus.  We  see  Him  in  Jesus.  We  know  Him  in  our 
highest  conception  of  what  He  is  in  himself  and  of  what 
He  is  to  man,  in  and  through  Christ.  If  you  point  me 
to  the  bodily  form  that  went  to  and  fro  along  the  roads 
of  Palestine  about  eighteen  and  a  half  centuries  ago,  and 
ask  if  I  can  believe  that  being  of  flesh  and  blood  whom 
my  eye  can  measure  and  the  scales  can  weigh,  to  be  the 
infinite  God,  I  answer  without  hesitation,  That  body 
cannot  be  God;  God  is  a  Spirit;  that  body  is  matter,  the 
same  as  any  other  human  form.  A  limited  form  cannot 
be  the  infinite  Spirit.  If  then  you  refer  me  to  the  Mind 
that  dwelt  in  that  body,  that  grew  in  wisdom  and  knowl- 
edge, and  confessed  ignorance  of  some  things  known  to 
the  Heavenly  Father,  and  ask  me  if  that  mind  is  one  and 


THE  CROWN  OF  CREATION.  'Ill 

co-equal  with  the  infinite  Mind,  I  can  only  answer  again 
that  Omniscience  cannot  grow  in  knowledge  or  confess 
ignorance;  the  finite  cannot  be  the  Infinite  in  the  sphere 
of  mind,  any  more  than  in  the  sphere  of  matter.  If  you 
remind  me,  again,  that  the  Will  which  controlled  that 
body  and  directed  the  powers  of  that  mind,  in  the  act  of 
prayer  confessed  dependence  and  the  need  of  help,  and  ask 
me  if  that  can  be  one  with  the  Omnipotent  Will,  I  reply 
once  more  that  the  dependent  cannot  at  the  same  time  be 
the  absolute  Independent;  the  finite  cannot  be  the  Infinite 
in  the  sphere  of  will  any  more  than  in  the  sphere  of  mat- 
ter or  knowledge.  To  affirm  that  they  are  is  sheer  self- 
contradiction.  It  is  merely  to  play  with  words;  to  amuse 
ourselves  with  impossible  imaginations.  Let  us  not  im- 
pose upon  our  reason  with  palpable  absurdities.  If  you 
once  more  ask  me  to  open  the  mystery  of  the  connection 
between  the  finite  and  the  Infinite,  and  make  clear  the 
metaphysical  relation  of  Jesus  to  the  Father,  I  can  only 
confess  that  as  my  powers  are  finite,  and  one  of  the  fac- 
tors of  your  problem  is  the  Infinite,  you  have  set  me  a 
task  for  which  I  am  incompetent.  I  cannot  grasp  a  unity 
in  which  I  must  still  believe.  This  only,  seems  important 
to  my  faith — I  need  to  remember  that  all  I  can  know  of 
the  Infinite  must  come  to  me  in  the  finite.  All  I  can  see 
of  God  must  be  in  his  limited  manifestations.  Jesus  ap- 
pears as  the  supreme  manifestation  of  the  Father.  To  see 
him  is  to  see  the  Father.  I  can  worship  God  at  all  only 
under  the  conceptions  I  gain  from  his  manifestation.  I 


112  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

cannot  do  otherwise,  therefore,  than  worship  Him  in  that 
thought  of  the  Divine  that  Jesus  gives  me.  As  my  eye 
ranges  upward  along  the  rising  orders  of  life  and  being 
in  which  God  has  come  forth  into  manifestation,  the  last 
and  highest  I  see  is  the  Man  of  Nazareth.  When  the 
search  after  God  leaps  beyond  the  thought  of  Him  it  there 
gains,  the  mind  finds  itself  floating  in  a  vague  and  limit- 
less vacancy,  where  nothing  is  discovered  upon  which  it 
can  rest  but  its  own  imaginings.  I  turn  from  them  as 
unsubstantial  support.  I  am  compelled  to  worship  God 
through  Christ.  If  I  discard  the  conception,  of  God  that 
comes  through  him,  I  find  myself  projecting  the  fiction  of 
my  own  brain  into  infinite  space  and  worshiping  that  as 
God.  I  may  call  him  Law,  may  call  him  Life,  may  call 
him  Goodness,  or  by  whatever  other  lofty  abstraction  hu- 
man language  supplies;  but  under  all  these  names  the 
sense  of  his  nearness,  of  the  reality  of  his  personal  rela- 
tion to  me,  fades  into  dimness.  When  by  faith  I  see  in 
Jesus  the  Father,  I  recover  the  lost  sense  of  that  nearness 
and  reality,  and  taste  the  "fruits  of  the  Spirit"  in  the 
communion  of  prayer. 

A  truce,  then,  to  controversy.  It  is  time  we  begin  to 
believe  in  Jesus  practically.  Whatever  incomprehensible 
wonders  we  may  believe  about  him,  our  faith  will  avail  little 
until  we  believe  in  him  for  what  we  can  see  him  to  be. 
We  need  to  look  at  him  in  his  relation  to  our  felt  want. 
What  light  does  he  throw  upon  our  life?  What  sugges- 
tions may  we  gain  from  him  for  our  own  improvement; 


THE   CROWN  OF  CREATION. 


what  help  in  the  fight  with  conscious  evils?  What  in- 
spirations to  higher  aims  and  holier  endeavors?  He  was 
named  Jesus  because  he  should  save  his  people  from  their 
sins.  To  see  the  human  beauty  of  his  life,  to  call  him 
Divine,  and  then  turn  away  to  plunge  into  impurities  of 
self-indulgence,  or  to  follow  the  law  of  selfishness  in  our 
work,  or  give  ourselves  up  to  all  meannesses  of  motive  and 
living,  is  only  to  prepare  for  ourselves  the  repulse  at  last, 
"I  know  you  not."  If  we  know  him  by  heart,  he  will 
know  us.  And  to  know  him  is  to  know  God  who  is  re- 
vealed in  him.  And  to  know  God  is  eternal  life  —  the  end 
for  which  the  whole  divine  Manifestation  comes  forth 
from  the  bosom  of  the  Infinite. 

We  have  said  that  Jesus  crowns  and  completes  this 
manifestation.  "  What  further,  then?  "  you  may  ask.  "If 
evolution  has  reached  its  highest,  progress  would  seem  to 
be  at  an  end."  No,  not  for  the  human  race  at  large. 
God's  way  is  to  educate  men  through  some  higher  man. 
The  history  of  human  progress  is  the  history  of  the  thought 
of  a  few  individuals.  We  claim  that  the  race  of  Israel  is 
the  High  Priest  of  humanity.  It  is  simply  fact,  not 
theory,  that  the  consciousness  of  the  Divine  and  of  the 
spiritual  relations  of  man,  rose  to  its  highest  and  broadest 
intuitions  of  truth  in  the  Jewish  mind.  Other  ancient 
races  rose  higher  in  art,  in  literature,  in  law,  in  science 
and  philosophy;  but  in  Jesus  religion  gave  its  clearest 
light  to  the  world.  The  further  the  comparative  study 
of  religion  is  carried,  the  more  will  this  be  made  to  appear. 


A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

No  sparkling  planet,  however  brilliant  its  ray,  will  be 
mistaken  for  the  central  Sun.  The  religion  of  Jesus  is  for 
all  mankind.  He  clearly  indicated  in  his  teachings  what 
his  own  relation  to  other  races  was  to  be.  He  came  to 
found  a  kingdom  of  God  that  should  be  universal.  He 
unlocalizes  its  worship,  and  erects  its  temple  and  its  altar 
wherever  there  is  a  heart  to  "worship  in  spirit  and  in 
truth."  He  irritates  his  countrymen  with  parables  that 
intimate  that  they  are  no  longer  the  special  favorites  of 
heaven.  Once  he  tells  them  flatly  that  the  kingdom  of 
God  should  be  taken  from  them  and  given  to  others,  who 
would  bring  forth  the  fruits  thereof.  "Other  sheep  I  have," 
says  he  to  his  own  disciples,  "which  are  not  of  this  fold." 
And  he  finally  gives  them  his  commission  to  preach  this 
kingdom  in  all  the  world,  and  to  every  creature.  It  way 
the  kingdom  of  truth,  the  mastery  in  each  soul  gained 
by  the  good  will  over  all  the  lower  passions,  right  princi- 
ple regnant  over  grasping  greed,  God  in  the  heart  en- 
throned over  the  man.  It  is  to  be  as  wide  as  tl^e  mani- 
festation of  the  King.  Wherever  He  can  be  seen  He  has 
the  right  to  reign.  And  as  God  has  consummated  his 
self -revelation  in  Jesus,  has  made  him  "  the  brightness  of 
His  glory,  and  the  express  Image  of  His  Person,"  by  that 
fact  Jesus  is  the  Crowned  Head  of  this  kingdom  of  truth. 
He  is  lifted  up  to  the  view  of  all  men  in  the  Passion  of 
Love,  in  the  attraction  of  the  cross,  that  he  might  draw 
all  men  unto  himself.  Blessed  is  the  man  who,  feeling, 
yields  to  that  divine  attraction ! 


The  New  Birth. 


JOHN  iii;  3:  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him,  Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  thee,  except  a  man  be  born  again  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

"  Born  from  above/'  you  will  see  in  the  margin  of  your 
reference  Bibles,  which  is  the  more  accurate  and  the  more 
suggestive  rendering  of  the  words  of  Jesus.  As  natural 
birth  brings  one  into  the  world  of  the  senses  with  organs 
for  the  perception  of  its  objects,  so  a  birth  from  above  into 
the  higher  world  of  the  spirit,  must  give  him  eye  and  ear 
and  taste  for  the  things  of  the  spirit  in  order  to  the  com- 
pleteness of  his  being.  This  saying  of  Jesus  to  the  timid 
Jewish  ruler  has  ever  possessed  a  peculiar  attraction  for 
the  purer  minds  of  the  Christian  world.  Clouded  often 
by  a  mystical  and  artificial  interpretation,,  it  makes  itself 
felt  even  through  the  obscurity  as  a  true  light  of  heaven. 
Like  the  living  fountain  gushing  from  the  hillside  and 
fouled  by  the  tread  of  some  passing  herd,  it  soon  runs 
clear  again,  and  men  turn  aside  to  slake  their  thirst  from 
its  pure  waters.  A  perpetual  sense  of  want,  deep  in  the 
heart  of  our  human  nature,  finds  here  its  way  to  satisfac- 
tion. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  mention  what  has  so  often  been 
explained,  that  the  figure  of  the  text  was  drawn  from  a 
well-known  custom  among  the  Jews  of  baptizing  Gentile 
proselytes  into  the  Jewish  religion.  This  baptism  had  the 


116  A   REASONABLE    CHRISTIANITY. 

force  of  naturalization.  It  initiated  the  subject  into  the 
same  privileges  as  if  he  had  been  born  a  Jew;  and  so  he 
was  counted  as  born  again  of  the  water  of  his  baptism. 
Nicodemus,  as  a  ruler  of  the  Jews,  ought  to  have  under- 
stood that  this  baptism  was  but  a  symbol,  and  that  the 
reality  for  which  it  stood  was  a  heart  of  loyalty  to  the 
law  of  Jehovah.  Without  the  true  spirit  of  a  Jewish 
citizen  the  symbol  was  but  a  mockery.  So  a  man  must 
be  "  born  of  water  and  of  the  spirit,"  says  Jesus,  before  he 
can  enter  into  the  privileges  of  citizenship  in  the  kingdom 
of  God.  He  must  get  a  heart  of  loyalty  to  this  realm  and 
rule  of  the  Spirit. 

It  is  hardly  probable  that  the  Teacher  intended  this  fig- 
ure, used  by  him  so  far  as  we  know  only  on  this  single 
occasion,  as  the  basis  of  a  formal  and  fundamental  doc- 
trine of  his  Church,  much  less  as  an  exaction  that  should 
be  used,  after  the  modern  style,  to  concentrate  the  atten- 
tion of  penitents,  in  their  initial  efforts  after  amendment, 
upon  some  mysterious  change  to  be  divinely  wrought 
within  them,  the  perception  of  which  should  be  hailed  as 
God's  smile  of  acceptance.  Such  a  use  only  throws  con- 
fusion over  the  way  of  repentance.  It  diverts  the  mind 
from  the  real  duty  to  be  done  to  the  illusions  that  come  of 
watching  the  flitting  moods  of  feeling.  If  such  had  been 
the  Savior's  intention,  it  is  strange  that  three  out  of  four 
reporters  of  his  sayings  to  us,  make  no  mention  of  this 
doctrine.  It  virtually  charges  three  of  the  Gospels  with 
radical  defect.  And  yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this 


4 

THE  NEW  BIRTH.  117 

figure  entered  deeply  into  all  the  early  Christian  thought 
and  teaching.  Paul  echoes  it  in  such  words  as  "The 
washing  of  regeneration  and  renewing  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,"  "Created  anew  in  Christ  Jesus,"  "Quickened  in 
the  spirit;"  and  John  in  his  often  reiterated,  "Born  of 
God,"  "  Born,  not  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will 
of  man,  but  of  God."  It  expresses  a  great  fact  inherent 
and  perpetual  in  human  nature.  Man  must  rise  into  the 
sense  of  his  relation  to  God  and  the  spirit  world,  or  he 
cannot  be  a  complete  man.  He  is  as  dependent  upon  influ- 
ences that  come  from  that  world  for  the  full  and  rounded 
development  of  his  moral  being  as  his  body  is  dependent 
in  its  growth  upon  the  nourishment  drawn  from  the  ma- 
terial world.  No  other  words  can  say  this  truth  so 
strongly  and  so  well  as  these — "  Ye  must  be  born  from 
above."  Our  human  need  cannot  afford  to  lay  aside  or 
forget  this  saying. 

Do  we  ask,  What  makes  this  necessity?  why  this 
Must  ?  The  answer  of  some  would  be,  Because  sin  hath 
depraved  man's  nature.  We  rather  say,  Because  God 
hath  made  the  need  inherent  in  man's  nature.  The  ne- 
cessity is  based  in  his  very  constitution.  It  pertains  to 
man  as  man.  He  can  never  be  a  full-grown  man  without 
this  new  birth.  The  Adam  would  have  needed  to  be  born 
from  above,  if  he  had  never  eaten  the  apple.  And  why? 
Because  He  must  rise  out  of  the  appetites  and  senses  into 
the  spiritual,  or  he  can  never  become  a  true  man.  It  is 
well  enough  for  him  to  begin  with  eating ;  we  must  all 


118  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

do  that;  but  he  must  outgrow  this  putting  of  appetitive 
or  material  good  above  every  higher  interest  and  aim,  or 
he  remains  less  than  a  man.  There  is  a  spiritual  life  into 
which  he  must  rise.  Not  to  rise  is  to  fall.  This  becomes 
apparent  by  simply  tracing  the  growth  of  a  human  soul. 
We  start  with  infancy.  The  babe  comes  into  the  world 
an  animate  bundle  of  uneasiness.  It  opens  its  eyes  on 
this  outward  scene.  Material  things  touch  the  senses  and 
evoke  their  action.  Appetite  begins  to  crave  as  the  heart 
beats,  involuntarily.  Hunger  and  pain  raise  the  instinct- 
ive cry  for  relief — nature's  prayer  for  food  and  help  and 
parental  providence.  The  bundle  grows.  It  opens  its 
eyes  wider.  The  sense  of  color  comes  with  the  myriad 
tints  that  float  in  on  beams  of  light.  The  vague  feeling 
of  beauty  flits  over  the  face  in  a  smile.  Sounds  touch  the 
ear  and  awaken  another  form  of  feeling.  Explosions  and 
discords  send  their  fright  into  the  look.  Musical  harmo- 
nies are  seen  playing  over  the  features.  The  little  auditor 
dances  and  crows  his  applause,  encoring  every  piece.  But 
as  yet  there  is  no  emotion  higher  than  comes  from  the 
senses.  Human  forms  are  hardly  distinguished  from  the 
marble  bust  in  the  niche  on  the  wall.  But  ere  long  the 
mother's  kiss  meets  a  smile  that  means  more  than  passive 
pleasure;  it  is  a  response  to  love.  That  is  a  great  fact. 
The  babe  is  born  anew  into  filial  love.  The  soul  has  risen 
out  of  the  senses  into  a  higher  experience.  Motherly  ten- 
derness has  touched  and  quickened  a  new  susceptibility  of 
the  being.  How  early  we  need  not  say ;  but  the  feelin^ 


THE  NEW  BIRTH.  119 

is  new,  better  than  any  that  went  before — faint  at  first, 
like  the  dawn  that  breaks  the  darkness  before  the  dawn, 
but  full  of  promise.  It  may  seem  at  the  moment  a  very 
little  matter,  that  faint,  tremulous  quiver  of  new-born 
love,  vibrating  over  the  chords  of  an  infant's  heart,  and 
rippling  out  in  smiles  ;  but  who  shall  say  it  is  not  a  great 
moment  in  the  life  of  the  child? — better  than  all  beauty 
of  colors,  better  than  the  keenest  delight  in  musical  har- 
monies, better  than  the  best  the  senses  can  give ;  a  new 
faculty  waked  up,  a  new  life  within  the  soul  begun.  No 
doubt  this  will  be  slow  in  maturing  and  coming  to  its  ful- 
ness of  strength.  The  age  of  half  lawless  impulse  suc- 
ceeds. The  babe  grows  into  the  rollicking  child,  that  sees 
everything,  wants  everything,  grasps  at  everything,  put- 
ting no  restraint  upon  itself,  needing  its  law  of  restraint 
from  an  older  will  until  it  can  learn  self-restraint,  filial 
love  itself  strangely  mixed  up  with  tops,  marbles,  kites 
and  dolls.  But  what  if  that  love  had  never  waked? 
What  if  the  very  power  had  been  left  dormant  ?  What 
would  have  been  lost  from  the  life  ?  What  would  be  lost 
out  of  the  world  and  out  of  human  experience  here,  if  love 
to  parents  were  never  felt.  Could  we  be  complete  ?  Ye 
must  be  born  from  above ! 

As  maturity  approaches,  a  more  serious  sense  of  rela- 
tions to  others  falls  on  the  soul.  Vague  yearnings 
prophesy  new  heart-births.  Other  regenerations  are 
coming.  Help  comes  from  some  "good  Samaritan"  in 
the  hour  of  sorest  need,  and  gratitude  is  born.  No  other 


120  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

sentiment  that  moves  the  heart  ever  brings  just  the  like 
experience.  It  is  another  new  life.  Two  congenial  spirits 
meet;  heart  answers  to  heart,  and  they  become  conscious 
of  that  new,  good  life  within  which  we  call  friendship. 
There  is  even  less  of  self  in  this  than  in  the  love  of  the 
chfld  for  the  parent.  In  the  sense  of  being  more  com- 
pletely disinterested  it  is  higher  and  purer.  Two  other 
souls  exchange  glances,  and  the  affection  is  born  which 
makes  them  one  for  life  and  one  forever.  God  hath  joined 
them  together;  let  no  man  put  them  asunder.  In  this 
union  Paradise  is  repeated  in  its  morning  purity  and  joy. 
So  when  the  first-born  is  laid  in  the  arms  of  the  parent, 
it  brings  another  regeneration.  The  heart  is  born  again 
into  a  new  kingdom  of  love.  None  but  the  parent,  as 
every  true  parent  knows,  can  see  that  kingdom  and  know 
its  joy.  What  a  new  world  of  experiences  is  here  entered ! 
In  this  feeling  we  find  the  very  crown  of  the  natural  af- 
fections. Parental  love  is  the  highest  type  of  the  love  of 
the  Father  in  heaven. 

But  is  this  growth  of  a  soul  yet  complete?  Are  all  the 
faculties  waked?  Is  the  man  wholly  alive?  Is  there  not 
a  higher  kingdom  of  love  and  responsibility  not  yet  en- 
tered? Man  is  a  spirit  as  well  as  a  being  of  intelligence 
and  natural  affections.  Spirit  is  related  to  spirit  as  truly 
as  body  to  body.  If  we  are  to  say  that  man  is  immortal, 
that  relation  must  extend  to  another  life.  All  finite 
spirits  are  related  to  each  other.  If  we  are  to  say  there 
is  a  Qpd,  an  Infinite  Spirit,  all  spirits  are  related  to  him. 


THE   NEW  BIRTH.  121 

And  now  pause  a  moment  and  think  of  the  new  world 
thus  suggested.  Is  it  conceivable  that  an  Infinite  Father 
in  Heaven  should  pervade  every  spot  on  earth  with  his 
presence  and  warm  every  object  with  his  love,  yet  the 
spirit  of  man  be  incapable  of  rising  into  a  sense  of  the 
great  fact?  Is  there  a  God,  and  yet  must  we  live  and 
feel  and  suffer  and  be  in  all  things  just  as  if  there  were 
no  God?  Are  we  indeed  "his  offspring,"  and  must  our 
hearts  lie  forever  dead  and  cold  under  the  smile  of  our 

* 

Father?  It  cannot  be!  Reason,  no  less  than  the  instinct 
of  love,  repels  the  chilling  suggestion.  It  must  be  that 
we  can  see  God  in  the  spirit  if  our  faith  will  consent  to 
look  for  Him.  It  must  be  that  we  can  raise  our  life  into 
a  living  and  growing  sense  of  what  he  is.  And  what  less 
can  that  vision  be  but  the  very  life  o£  our  life?  . 

There  are  times  when  every  heart  craves  this  revela- 
tion. I  believe  it  comes  with  more  or  less  clearness  to 
every  earnest  soul.  To  one  earlier,  to  another  later,  but 
in  every  one  that  aspires  to  a  better  life  there  dawns  the 
sense  of  a  LIVING  PRESENCE,  greater,  more  solemn,  more 
sweet,  than  the  bodily  eye  ever  sees.  Nature  hints  this 
Presence  in  a  thousand  ways.  Her  bountiful  growths 
satisfy  our  material  wants.  Her  beauty  kindles  within 
us  a  pure  joy.  Her  order  speaks  of  an  intelligent  Mind 
and  purpose.  Her  beneficent  forces  soothe  our  pains  and 
heal  our  sicknesses.  Think  well,  feel  the  deepest  meaning 
of  all  these,  and  you  will  say  there  must  be  a  Heart  of 
goodness  in  them.  And  when  we  come  into  the  light  of 


122  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

the  Cross,  the  words,  the  life,  the  death  of  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth, the  hint  of  nature  rises  into  moral  demonstration. 
The  clearest  Word  of  God's  presence  there  speaks.  The 
soul  feels  the  reality.  But  whenever  and  by  whatever 
means  the  revelation  comes,  its  advent  is  the  supreme 
hour  of  life.  God  discovers  himself  to  the  soul.  Hence- 
forth the  best  light  that  ever  falls  into  this  world  lies  in 
growing  brightness  on  the  pathway.  When  the  teacher 
of  the  deaf  and  blind  girl  Laura  Bridgman  had  succeeded 
with  untiring  effort  and  ingenuity  in  conveying  to  Her 
imprisoned  mind  the  thought  of  a  Supreme  Being,  Creator 
of  the  universe  and  Father  of  all,  the  ecstasy  into  which 
it  threw  her,  he  says,  was  indescribable.  She  was  held 
for  some  minutes  in  a  sort  of  trance-vision.  When  she 
came  to  herself  again  and  sought  by  her  mute  eloquence 
to  express  her  emotions,  her  face  glowed  with  what  seemed 
more  than  mortal  joy.  A  God,  a  Father,  a  Heart  of  love 
at  the  center  of  this  vast  cold  universe !  That  was  the 
supreme  Fact.  And  this  discovery,  thus  first  opening  it- 
self to  view,  raised  her  life  into  a  new  world  which  has 
grown  more  bright  and  joyous  as  she  has  advanced  in 
years.  No  wonder  that  the  first  opening  of  this  Fact  to 
any  soul,  in  the  shadows  that  rest  so  heavily  on  this  mor- 
tal state,  should  seem  to  transfigure  the  universe.  That 
light  which  was  never  on  land  or  sea  is  in  the  soul.  New 
faculties  seem  to  wake.  An  encompassing  Presence  of 
Goodness  and  Power  is  felt.  "Old  things  have  passed 
away ;  behold,  all  things  are  become  new ! " 


THE  NEW  BIRTH.  123 

Now  let  us  consider  a  moment  where  this  view  brings 
us.  The  "  birth  from  above  "  which  Jesus  declares  to  be 
the  essential  condition  of  our  seeing  the  kingdom  of  God, 
is  no  reconstruction  of  our  natural  constitution,  as  has 
often  been  imagined,  no  creation  of  new  faculties  within 
us,  no  arbitrary  change  wrought  in  us,  against  all  known 
laws  of  the  mind,  by  a  force  sent  from  heaven;  it  is  in  the 
line  of  the  normal  growth  of  the  soul — the  last  great  step 
towards  its  completion.  It  is  the  unsealing  of  the  highest 
faculties  of  man.  It  is  simply  rising  into  the  perception 
of  our  true  relation  to  God  and  spiritual  realities.  That 
realm  of  the  spiritual  is  real ;  it  is  all  around  us.  We  are 
part  of  it.  This  new  birth  is  but  opening  the  eyes  of  the 
spirit  upon  its  own  world.  It  should  be  no  mystery  that 
a  man  cannot  enter  that  world  and  live  in  its  relations 
until  he  gets  a  perception  for  its  realities.  Home  is  a 
meaningless  word  till  one  loves  home.  Friendship  is  but 
a  sound  on  the  tongue  till  one  both  has  a  friend  and  is  a 
friend.  No  kingdom  of  love  is  entered  but  by  love.  What 
wonder,  then,  that  a  man  cannot  possess  this  highest 
birthright  that  crowns  his  humanity  till  the  new  birth 
opens  his  eyes. 

The  unnatural  air  of  mystery  which  has  been  thrown 
around  this  theme  is  thus  dissipated.  This  need  is  a 
great  world-fact.  It  is  as  wide  as  humanity.  It  is  a 
home  fact  for  each  of  us.  It  is  just  as  clear  as  the  fact 
that  we  cannot  be  mathematicians,  or  see  the  kingdom  of 
mathematics,  if  we  will  not  study  numbers,  or  that  we 


124  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

cannot  be  geologists  if  we  give  no  attention  to  the  facts 
of  geology.  It  is  simply  saying  that  we  cannot  see  a 
thing  if  we  will  not  use  the  eye  to  see  it. 

Let  us  not  imagine  the  truth  loses  its  importance  because 
it  is  thus  cleared  of  its  look  of  spiritual  magic.  It  be- 
comes us  each  to  ask,  Have  we  risen  into  any  experience 
of  this  higher  life?  Are  we  born  from  above?  Are  we 
in  the  way  to  completeness  of  soul?  We  do  not  like  to 
think  of  being  dwarfs  in  body.  But  a  dwarf  body  often 
carries  a  beautifully  complete  £oul.  Then  the  bodily  mis- 
fortune is  not  very  serious.  But  a  dwarf-soul,  a  divine 
creature  that  stops  short  of  complete  growth — that  is  a 
sad  spectacle !  We  are  shocked  to  meet  one  of  those  ab- 
normal beings  that  now  and  then  appear  on  earth,  like 
Pomeroy,  the  boy-murderer  of  Boston,  who  seem  destitute 
of  any  power  of  moral  perception.  They  are  moral  idiots 
With  all  the  keenness  of  intellect  and  desire  seen  in  other 
human  beings,  they  seem  incapable  of  grasping  the  dis- 
tinction between  right  and  wrong,  or  feeling  any  of  the 
obligations  that  bind  others  in  their  moral  relations.  No 
words  can  speak  the  repulsive  monstrosity.  May  it  not 
be  that  there  are  beings  in  a  higher  sphere  that  look  upon 
that  human  soul  that  has  never  waked  to  the  perception 
of  God  and  divine  things  with  feelings  akin  to  those  with 
which  we  look  upon  such  an  abnormal  human  creature? 
A  soul  dark  toward  God;  blind  to  the  things  of  prayer  and 
sacred  song,  and  all  spiritual  worship,  that  is  to  all  these 
just  at  if  there  were  no  realities  answering  to  them! 


THE  NEW  BIRTH.  125 

That  surely  we  do  not  want  to  be.  We  have  asked  what 
would  be  lost  from  the  life  if  filial  love  were  never  waked 
in  the  heart.  We  feel  at  once  that  no  words  could  mourn 
that  desolation  enough.  Would  the  loss  be  less  if  love  to 
the  Father  in  Heaven  wakes  not? 

Let  us  be  advised,  also,  to  spend  no  time  over  the  ques- 
tion how  early  this  great  change  may  take  place  in  the 
child.  Nurture  children  in  the  truth;  tell  them  the 
story  of  the  One  who  took  little  children  in  his  arms  and 
blessed  them,  and  said  "  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven;" 
see  that  God's  love  shines  on  them  through  human  love; 
then  leave  their  hearts  to  wake  as  they  will.  Wake  they 
will  under  this  nurture,  even  as  filial  love  wakes  under 
the  fostering  of  a  mother's  tenderness.  Perhaps,  as  Bush- 
nell  suggests,  children  should  never  know  when  this  new 
life  begins.  Perhaps  if  they  were  surrounded  from  the 
very  dawn  of  their  intelligence  with  the  best  influences 
of  a  Christian  home  they  would  "grow  up  Christians," 
and  never  think  of  a  date  for  the  great  change. 

Stay  as  little  over  the  question  where  rests  the  point 
of  our  responsibility  for  this  change.  It  is  simply  to  use 
the  powers  that  God  has  .given  to  see  and  act.  The  pres- 
ence of  the  Spirit  is  a  fact.  The  pressure  of  the  Spirit 
on  conscience  and  heart  is  a  fact.  Every  twinge  of  re- 
morse, no  matter  how  faint,  every  impulse  and  aspiration 
to  leave  the  worse  life  and  choose  the  better,  is  the  con- 
tact of  the  spirit  of  God  with  the  soul,  moving  it  to  the 
right  way.  Yield  and  act,  and  the  new  life  is  begun. 


126  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

What  is  your  responsibility  for  using  the  light  of  the 
Sun?  It  is  to  open  your  eyes,  and  then  do  the  work  you 
see  to  be  done.  The  world  of  material  things  is  real,  is 
permanent.  God  has  given  the  light  and  given  you  eyes 
to  see  them.  The  world  of  spiritual  things  is  more  real, 
Tnore  permanent.  God  is  the  ever  present  light,  and  has 
given  you  eyes  to  see  these  too.  Your  part  is  to  open 
your  eyes  and  act  on  what  you  see.  Let  in  the  light ;  and 
let  the  light  meet  an  obedient  will ;  and  the  heart  is  at 
home  with  God. 

Furthermore,  let  it  never  be  forgotten  that  the  new 
birth  is  not  a  matured  life.  It  is  a  new  life  quickened' 
but  not  grown.  It  is  but  the  starting  germ.  If  not  fos- 
tered it  will  die.  If  kept  alive  it  will  be  according  to  the 
culture  it  receives.  Neglected,  overshadowed  by  the  rank 
growths  of  worldliness,  it  will  be  dwarfed  and  sickly; 
cherished  with  daily  prayer  and  Christlike  works  it  will 
rise  into  a  strong  tree  of  life,  "  yielding  its  fruits  every 
month."  No  mistake  is  more  disastrous  than  the  idea 
that  the  spiritual  life  once  begun  will  take  care  of  itself. 
Religion  is  an  education  as  well  as  an  inspiration.  The 
result  will  be  as  the  conditions  -and  culture  given.  The 
filial  love  that  turns  away  satisfied  with  a  few  glimpses 
of  the  Father's  face  will  die  in  its  infancy.  It  lives  only 
in  the  Father's  presence  and  in  finding  its  delight  there 
day  by  day.  In  no  other  way  can  it  live  and  grow. 

When  this  vision  of  God  is  not  unsealed  till  the  years 
of  maturity,  the  occasion  on  which  the  change  comes  are 


THE  NEW  BIRTH. 


infinitely  varied  .  It  may  be  some  moment  of  high  thought 
or  clear  insight,  when  the  eye  suddenly  pierces  the  crust 
of  material  things  and  rests  directly  upon  the  Reality,  of 
which  they  are  but  the  shadow.  It  may  be  in  the  solemn 
twilight,  when  out  of  the  gathering  mystery  of  darkness, 
steals  into  the  hushed  soul  a  sense  of  HIM  who  gave  the 
sunset  its  glory  and  night  its  palpitating  sheen  of  stars. 
It  may  be  under  the  depression  of  some  great  sorrow, 
when  the  spirit  lies  crushed,  and  panting  for  a  love  that 
cannot  betray,  a  friend  that  will  not  forsake,  a  comforter 
who  will  not  deceive,  a  refuge  that  cannot  fail,  and  sud- 
denly it  feels  itself  in  the  supporting  arms  of  an  Infinite 
Goodness.  It  may  be,  especially  to  one  who  has  sinned 
grievously,  in  the  terrible  smiting  of  conscience,  when  fear 
and  shame  and  conscious  unworthiness  are  just  falling 
into  despair;  but  lo,  a  change  comes  as  the  eye  turns 
heavenward;  a  strange,  unlocked  for  peace  gives  assur- 
ance that  the  great  Father  hath  not  cast  off  his  unworthy 
child.  Let  no  one  await  occasion.  The  sense  of  spiritual 
want,  weakness,  imperfection,  the  cry  of  the  soul  for  help 
to  live  a  better  life  and  be  a  better  soul,  is  the  occasion. 
The  renewing  Spirit  is  never  absent.  The  Helper  is  ever 
ready.  Turn  the  thoughts  to  Him,  and  even  before  the  lips 
can  utter  the  heart's  call  the  infinite  Life  and  Love  answer. 
It  only  needs  to  be  added  that  we  have  in  this  doctrine  of 
the  "birth  from  above,"  which  has  so  generally  been  clouded 
with  mystery  and  transcendental  sentiment,  an-other  ex- 
ample of  the  perfect  simplicity,  reasonableness,  and  accord 
with  nature  that  run  through  all  the  teachings  of  our  Savior 


The  Atonement. 


JOHN  ili:  16,  17,  18:  For  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his 
only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  perish 
but  have  everlasting  life.  For  God  sent  not  his  Son  into  the  world  to 
condemn  the  world,  but  that  the  world  through  him  might  be  sa  ved. 
He  that  believeth  on  him  is  not  condemned,  but  he  that  believeth  not 
is  condemned  already  because  he  hath  not  believed  in  the  name  of  the 
only-begotten  Son  of  God. 

If  you  had  a  bad,  reckless  boy  who  had  trampled  on 
your  commands  and  spurned  your  kindness,  and  run  away 
from  home,  and  continued  to  outrage  all  your  known 
wishes  in  such  behavior  that  his  own  self -accusing  con- 
science made  him  afraid  to  return,  the  feeling  of  ill-desert 
in  him  picturing  your  anger  as  burning  to  get  hold  of 
him  and  take  vengeance  on  his  evil  conduct,  that  feeling 
you  readily  see,  so  long  as  it  is  unassured,  must  bar  all 
reconciliation.  Fear  dare  not  return ;  and  fear  is  next  of 
kin  to  hate.  But  that  feeling  is  partly  an  error.  Its 
sense  of  guilt  and  shame  is  just;  it  ought  to  be  felt;  but 
its  picture  of  your  wrath  burning  for  vengeance  is  the 
fiction  of  a  guilty  conscience.  Your  heart  towards  your 
erring  boy  longs  for  his  repentence  and  return  home. 
Now  if  you  would  effect  a  reconciliation  and  bring  him 
back  to  you,  what  must  you  do?  You  must  correct  this 
false  impression;  you  must  let  him  know  how  you  really 
feel  towards  him ;  you  must  in  some  way  manifest  your 
love  to  him.  And  nothing  will  tell  your  whole  heart  to 


THE  ATONEMENT.  129 

him,  and  make  him  feel  how  he  has  misjudged  and  wronged 
you,  as  when  he  sees  you  suffering  for  his  sake.  Words 
are  cheap;  it  is  easy  to  pretend  love;  but  when  he  sees 
you  on  the  rack  of  agony  for  his  disgrace;  when  you  go 
after  him  in  long,  painful  journeyings,  and  down  into  the 
disgusting  haunts  of  his  degradation  that  you  may  speak 
kindly  to  him  and  invite  him  home,  he  knows  how  you 
feel.  Affection  will  do  this;  but  affectation  never  makes 
its  displays  at  such  expense.  You  effect  a  twofold  result 
— you  dissipate  the  false  idea  of  his  guilty  fear;  and  bet- 
ter, you  make  him  feel,  if  all  sense  of  manhood  is  not 
gone,  his  own  baseness  in  so  outraging  your  love.  No 
wrath  waits  at  home,  rod  in  hand,  to  smite  him;  the 
way  is  open;  the  welcome  is  assured;  the  mightiest  of 
all  attractions,  love,  draws  him  home ;  and  no  other  power 
could  do  so  much  to  make  him  fit  to  come,  and  want  to 
come. 

Here,  if  I  have  rightly  apprehended  it,  you  have  the 
Gospel.  This  little  picture  of  a  possible  and  sometimes 
actual  human  experience  will  give  you  a  true  idea  of  the 
divine  atonement  for  man's  sin,  what  it  is,  how  it  acts, 
and  the  results  it  effects.  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he 
gave  his  only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in 
him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life.  Sin  on 
the  part  of  man,  manifold  disobediences  and  wickednesses, 
the  unrest,  sometimes  the  sharp  remorse,  of  a  guilty  con- 
science for  these — which  we  ought  to  feel — the  fear  born 
naturally  of  this  sense  of  guilt,  which  paints  God  as  a 


130  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

grim  Wrath,  though  His  name  is  Love;  a  mistake;  but 
one  that  must  shut  the  gate  of  repentance  and  reconcilia- 
tion with  God  until  it  is  corrected — to  man  in  this  condi- 
tion God  sends  forth  his  Son,  the  manifestation  of  his 
love,  to  correct  the  mistake  of  his  fear,  melt  his  enmity  to 
repentance  and  call  him  home.  Remember  now  that  the 
highest  manifestation  of  God  to  man  is  in  and  through 
man,  remember  that  in  Jesus  we  "see  the  Father,"  the 
clearest  Word  that  speaks  the  heart  of  God  to  man,  then 
the  expression  of  God's  love  in  Christ  to  you  and  me  is 
just  as  direct,  just  as  personal,  as  if  we  had  been  the  sole 
object  of  his  coming.  If  we  are  sinners,  if  we  are  in  the 
need  that  sin  creates,  here  is  God's  appeal  of  love  to  our 
hearts.  He  asks  our  reconciliation  to  himself.  We  know 
in  Christ  that  the  way  is  open  and  welcome  awaits  us. 

I.  Let  us  seek  an  answer  to  the  inquiry,  What  is  the 
atonement?  Cleared  of  all  artificial  notions,  interpreted, 
as  it  must  be  if  we  would  ever  understand  it,  by  human 
experience,  we  shall  learn  that  it  has  been  no  mistake  to 
count  the  sacrifice  in  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  the  divinest 
fact  that  has  fallen  into  the  life  of  our  sin-disordered 
world.  We  shall  discover  it  to  be  the  very  heart  of  power 
to  save  the  lost,  to  lift  up  the  fallen,  to  give  the  despair- 
ing hope.  We  shall  find  it  to  be  a  fact  that  multiplies 
itself  in  every  noble  life  and  runs  through  all  holy  en- 
deavor to  make  the  world  better,  as  the  very  spring  and 
life  that  impels  the  beneficent  activities. 

Bear  in  mind  the  simple  illustration  with  which  we 


THE  ATONEMENT.  131 

started,  and  you  will  see  that  objectively  considered,  the 
Atonement  is  the  expression  of  love  to  the  unworthy  by 
self -sacrifice.  It  is  the  costly  manifestation  of  love.  It 
is  the  heart  speaking  by  its  own  pain.  In  this  is  its 
power  to  reconcile  or  atone.  Set  aside  at  once  the  idea 
that  Christ's  atonement  is  an  enduring  of  the  penalty  of 
transgression  in  the  place  of  the  sinner,  pays  his  debt, 
satisfies  justice,  placates  God,  appeases  His  wrath,  soothes 
His  vengeance,  moves  His  heart  to  mercy,  or  does  any- 
thing, aside  from  the  effect  wrought  in  the  sinner,  to  make 
it  possible  for  God  to  forgive.  It  does  not  change  God's 
feeling;  it  simply  declares  what  his  feeling  is.  It  does 
not  make  the  fact  or  possibility  that  God  can  forgive  the 
penitent;  it  declares  that  fact.  It  tells  us  what  has  been 
a  fact  from  eternity  in  the  bosom  of  God,  and  would  have 
remained  a  fact  if  no  outward  atonement  or  expression  of 
it  had  been  made.  Just  as  Paul  teaches  the  Romans : 
"  Being  j  ustified  freely  by  his  grace  through  the  redemp- 
tion that  is  in  Christ  Jesus ;  whom  God  hath  set  forth  to 
be  a  propitiation  through  faith  in  his  blood,  to  declare  his 
righteousness  for  the  remission  of  sins  that  are  past  through 
the  forbearance  of  God;  to  declare,  I  say,  at  this  time  his 
righteousness,  that  he  might  be  just  and  the  justifier  of 
him  who  believeth  in  Jesus," — not  to  make  Him  righteous 
in  forgiving,  but  to  let  the  world  know  that  He  is  right- 
eous. God's  declaration  of  love  to  the  world  in  Jesus 
opens  to  view  his  heart  as  eternal  forgiveness  to  the  repent- 
ing. It  tells  us  the  sinner  is  forgiven  the  moment  he 


132  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

repents.  Heart-felt  repentance  is  the  only  condition. 
God's  love  is  forgiveness,  and  takes  effect  the  instant  the 
sinner  repents,  as  the  sun  begins  to  warm  the  instant  one 
comes  out  of  a  dungeon  into  his  light.  The  sun  does  not 
change;  the  darkened  soul  is  the  one  that  changes. 

It  was  once  the  style  to  represent  God  as  a  hot  sky, 
shimm'ering  with  wrath  over  the  sinner,  and  closing  piti- 
lessly down  upon  him ;  and  the  atonement  was  to  cool  His 
burning  vengeance,  and  hold  back  its  fires.  This  fell  in 
with  the  mistake  of  guilty  fear,  confirmed  instead  of  cor- 
recting it.  It  virtually  said  to  the  sinner,  God  does  feel 
toward  you  just  as  your  terrified  conscience  imagines. 
The  Father  is  irreconcilably  mad  with  his  child.  His 
wrath  "  burns  as  an  oven "  to  consume  you.  Your  re- 
pentance, be  it  never  so  deep  and  thorough,  cannot  appease 
him.  It  is  not  enough.  His  outraged  law,  his  angry 
justice,  demands  satisfaction.  Somebody  must  suffer  to 
soothe  this  wrath.  It  must  have  a  victim.  And  so  the 
Atonement  of  Christ  was  not  primarily  to  declare  or  mani- 
fest the  love  of  God,  but  to  satisfy  the  law  for  the  sin  of 
man.  It  was  to  work  a  change  in  God  rather  than  in 
the  sinner.  It  was  to  content  justice  with  the  sight  of 
the  suffered  penalty  of  the  law,  or  what  was  equivalent  to 
the  penalty;  although  in  what  way  justice  could  find  any 
satisfaction  in  the  suffering  of  the  innocent  for  the  guilty, 
or  accept  it,  or  any  substituted  pain,  as  an  equivalent  to 
the  penalty,  no  principle  upon  which  we  are  accustomed 
to  estimate  and  apply  that  quality  makes  apparent. 


THE  ATONEMENT.  133 

That  love  suffers  for  the  unworthy,  we  know ;  it  is  a  fact 
as  wide  as  human  goodness.     That  it  finds  a  peculiar  sat- 
isfaction in  expressing  itself  by  pain  or  sacrifice,  if  occa- 
sion demands,  we  know ;  every  mother's  heart  that  wears 
out  her  body  to  save  her  sinning    child,  every  effort  that 
goes  forth  in  toil  and  reproach  to  rescue  the  tempted,  to 
raise  the  fallen,  to  wash  the  uncleanness  of  vice  from  hu- 
man souls,  is  a  demonstration.     That  God's  love  should 
find  a  way  of  expressing  itself  to  men  through  suffering 
in  the  divinest  of  men,  we  can  understand;  but  that   He 
should  feel  any  satisfaction  in  the  sight  of  a  guiltless  one 
suffering  for  the  claim  of  a  law  that  the  sufferer  has  never 
broken,  or  that  He  should  refuse  to  forgive  the  penitent 
until  he  sees  some  innocent  one  suffer  the  pain  due  their 
sins,  or  suffer  at  all  on  their  account,  seems  but  the  con- 
fusion of  all  justice,  nay,  but  for  the  blin  Iness  of  the  mis- 
take, the  awfullest  of  blasphemies.     Do  you  say  that  the 
sense  of  justice  in  Him  must  demand  something  more 
than    repentance    before    it    forgives?      Think   a   little 
Would  your  sense  of  justice  as  a  parent  stop  your  stray- 
ing child  on  the  threshold,  returning  to  you  thoroughly 
humbled,  penitent,  contrite,  and  insist  that  he  should  suf- 
fer more,  or  somebody  must  suffer  for  him,  before  you 
will  forgive?   Is  there  anything  in  your  heart  that  clamors 
to  see  somebody  pained  for  his  disobediences  before  you 
will  consent  to  be  reconciled?     If  there  is,  so  much  the 
worse  for  your  heart.     Or  if  you  say  it  is  necessary  to 
make  an  example  of  the  disobedient,  or  inflict  suffering  on 


134  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

some  one  to  make  an  equivalent  impression,  is  there  any- 
thing in  you  that  would  take  the  least  satisfaction  in  see- 
ing an  innocent  person  pained  for  the  child  of  your  neigh- 
bor, returning  in  penitence  to  his  home,  before  the  father 
should  accord  forgiveness?  If  there  is,  so  much  the  worse 
for  yourself.  A  right  temper  could  need  no  such  specta- 
cle to  confirm  its  fidelity.  God's  government  does  not 
stand  upon  any  such  subterfuges.  God's  authority  needs 
no  such  devices  to  keep  it  in  respect.  God's  love  finds  no 
bar  in  the  way  of  its  mercy  but  the  hard  impenitence  of 
the  heart.  When  that  yields  to  the  manifestation  of  his 
love,  the  atonement  goes  into  effect  in  the  soul.  God  and 
the  sinner  are  at-one. 

We  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  is  not 
to  move  God's  feelings  toward  the  sinner,  but  to  declare 
what  His  feelings  are;  not  an  expiation  of  man's  sin,  but 
a,  manifestation  of  God's  love;  not  to  satisfy  justice,  but 
to  satisfy  love  in  the  effort  to  win  back  the  hearts  of  God's 
alienated  children. 

II.  We  turn  to  inquire  how  we  may  enter  into  the  re- 
alization of  this  great  fact?  It  took  place  more  than 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago.  It  was  in  an  obscure  cor- 
ner of  the  world.  It  was  the  life  and  death  of  a  plain 
peasant,  who  was  crucified  on  a  charge  of  sedition,  in 
company  with  two  criminals.  What  was  there  in  this 
man  to  touch  all  our  lives  more  closely  and  deeply  than 
any  other,  yea,  than  all  other  facts  in  human  history? 
No  startling  stroke  of  genius,  no  vast  achievement,  noth- 


THE  ATONEMENT.  135 

ing  that   made   the  world  stand  amazed,  or  even  sent 
any  report   of   itself  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the  lit- 
tle state  in  which  it  occurred  till  some  years  later.     How 
could  there  be  anything  in  an  event  of  such  small  notice 
to  make  a  revolted  world  of  men  change  front  in  their 
attitude  towards  God,  lay  down  arms,  and  sue  for  him  to 
resume  his  sovereignty  over  them?     It  does  not  look  pos- 
sible.    No,  not  to  our  coarse  way  of  estimating  events  by 
the  loudness  of  their  report,  or  the  amount  and  flashing 
brilliance  of  their  display.     None  of  the  deeper  meanings 
of  life  ever  come  to  this  mood.     It  requires  a  certain  faith 
that  looks  through  the  show  of  things  to  their  substance 
to  interpret  the  sacrifice  in  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus. 
Faith  only  can  catch  the  significance  of  any  really  great 
event.     The   grandest  meanings  always   hide  under  an 
unimpressive  exterior.     Look  at  our  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence.    It  made  us  a  nation.     What  was  there  in  the 
surroundings   amid   which   it    arose   to   notify    men   of 
the  power  it  held?     A  few  plain  men  deliberating  to- 
gether in  a  dingy  hall,  in  behalf  of  two  or  three  millions 
of  poor  people,  scattered  along  the  coast  of  a  wild  conti- 
nent of  savages.     Here  was  no  look  of  power.     The  grand 
courts  of  Europe,  and  the  captains  that  could  count  then 
soldiers  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  might  well  have  smiled 
at  that  little  band.     But  the  throb  of  liberty  was  in  then 
hearts;  the  flame  of  liberty  was  on  their  lips;  the  nerve 
of  freemen  guided  their  pen;  and  so  the  little  act  they 
sent  forth  to  the  world,  alive  in  every  sentence  with  the 


136  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

spirit  of  the  hearts  from  which  it  sprung,  has  been  the 
inspiration  to  manlier  thoughts  and  grander  deeds  of 
growing  millions  of  freemen  through  more  than  a  century, 
and  gathers,  rather  than  loses,  power  of  inspiration  for 
the  millions  of  other  centuries  to  come.  The  world  is 
changing  front  in  its  government  of  men  at  the  sound  of 
that  still,  small  voice.  It  was  only  faith  in  truth,  justice, 
liberty,  man,  God,  that  could  have  seen  the  meaning  there 
was  in  that  little  event.  It  is  only  faith  in  these  that  can 
catch  any  of  the  grander  significances  of  life.  If  we  have 
not  that  faith,  God  pity  us;  for  it  is  certain  that  without 
it  we  must  remain  blind  to  all  that  is  best  worth  seeing. 
And  when  you  turn  the  eye  of  a  faith  that  can  see  on  the 
Sufferer  of  Calvary,  mark  the  spirit  in  which  he  lived 
take  in  the  scope  of  the  words  he  spoke,  and  see  how  he 
dies,  you  will  not  want  any  grandeurs  of  outward  dis- 
play to  reveal  the  Divinity  there  expressed.  You  will  be 
glad  that  these  are  away.  They  would  but  annoy  and 
divert  your  mind.  You  feel  there  the  mightiest  power 
that  has  dropped  into  human  history.  We  know  that 
more  of  God  is  expressed  in  man  than  in  any  or  all  other 
of  His  works.  Most  of  God  is  expressed  in  the  highest 
man.  And  faith  will  make  no  doubt,  while  it  gazes  there, 
that  it  is  indeed  looking  upon  the  highest  and  completest 
manifestation  of  the  thought  and  heart  of  God  toward  men 
that  has  ever  been  given  to  our  earth.  "  He  that  believeth 
in  him  is  not  condemned." 

III.  The  fruits  of  experience  and  life  that  must  spring 


THE  ATONEMENT.  137 

from  this  sacrifice,  so  apprehended  by  faith,  are  now  easily 
anticipated.  God's  love  manifest;  man's  heart  touched 
by  its  power;  the  guilt-stricken,  alienated  child  reconciled 
to  his  Father — this  but  tamely  expresses  the  changed  con- 
ditions under  which  the  life  goes  forward  that  has  ac- 
cepted the  atonement.  It  will  be  a  new  life.  It  will 
drink  from  the  living  fountains  of  divine  Goodness.  It 
will  walk  in  the  light  of  God. 

I  have  presented  Christ  as  manifesting  the  love  of  God 
to  our  race  in  an  entirely  natural  way.  If  there  is  a  God, 
will  any  one  doubt  that  he  loves  us  as  we  learn  in  Christ? 
I  have  presented  him  as  seeking  to  move  us  to  repent- 
ance and  better  living  by  a  means  that  is  entirely  incel-li- 
gible  and  reasonable,  a  power  that  the  universal  human 
heart  confesses  to  be  the  mightiest  to  soften  enmity  and 
effect  reconciliation.  I  have  presented  him  as  living  and 
suffering  to  meet  the  need  of  our  actual  condition,  a  broken 
harmony  with  God,  alienation  from  Him.  Is  this  real? 
Was  the  work  of  Jesus  more  than  a  fiction?  Is  the  state 
of  things  in  man's  relation  to  God  what  he  assumed? 
Then  the  charge  against  us  is  serious.  It  touches  us  in- 
dividually. It  says  if  the  love  of  God  does  not  move  us 
to  repentance,  we  remain  alienated  from  Him.  It  is  to 
make  us  feel  our  sin,  our  individual  responsibility  and 
need,  as  well  as  God's  love.  Till  that  sense  of  sin  is  felt 
there  is  no  atonement.  We  shall  do  well  to  understand 
our  condition.  It  looks  like  a  verge  of  bankruptcy  that 
admits  of  no  trifling  in  the  case.  If  it  be  a  fact  that  we 


138  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

are  not  in  relations  of  perfect  harmony  with  God,  if  we 
have  crossed  the  divine  justice,  or  stained  the  divine  purity, 
or  wronged  the  infinite  Goodness,  in  thought,  or  word,  or 
act,  then  the  eternal  nature  of  things,  the  immutable  laws 
of  our  own  being  make  it  certain  that  we  can  never  come 
back  into  that  lost  harmony  and  be  at  one  with  God, 
save  through  repentance  and  faith.  Once  in  sin,  the  way 
back  into  purity  is  forever  closed  unless  repentance,  deep 
and  hearty,  opens  the  gate.  The  certainty  is  as  sure  as 
that  God  will  not  change,  or  that  we  will  remain  respon- 
sible beings.  Here  is  no  fictitious  hell ;  we  are  dealing 
with  ourselves,  with  facts  as  they  are,  with  inflexible 
verities.  There  is  no  sharp  device  of  infinite  craft,  with 
amiable  wishes  to  help  us,  that  can  let  us  go  free.  No 
substitute,  though  his  pain  for  us  were  infinite,  can  stand 
for  that  repentance.  The  necessity  will  not  lapse  with 
time,  will  not  wear  away,  will  not  be  lost  in  the  variety 
of  changing  experiences,  will  not  grow  lighter  by  the 
smallest  atom,  will  not  be  forgotten  by  the  laws  of  the 
soul,  even  should  it  drop  wholly  out  of  our  memory 
The  party  that  is  in  the  wrong  must  yield ;  and  God  is 
not  that  party.  The  repentance  must  be  j  ust  as  deep  and 
humbling  as  the  error  demands,  or  the  life  inevitably  goes 
on  under  whatever  curse  is  implied  in  being  out  of  har- 
mony with  God.  We  know  the  terms  under  which  we 
live,  if  we  but  think.  I  want  to  be  no  terrorist;  but  I 
want  to  see  things  as  they  are.  I  cannot  speak  otherwise 
than  as  I  see.  And  no  rose-water  Gospel  here  will  meet 


THE  ATONEMENT.  139 

the  case.  I  have  come  to  feel  entirely  sure  that  if  Chris- 
tianity be  not  at  heart  radically  false,  if  there  is  any  truth 
in  its  central  aim,  its  proclaimed  mission  to  the  world, 
any  need  of  its  work,  the  world  of  our  time  has  fallen 
into  a  way  of  passing  by  its  warnings  with  a  cheerful 
levity  that  bodes  no  good.  We  groan,  it  is  true,  over  the 
corruptions  of  the  times ;  we  exclaim  over  human  depravity 
in  the  mass;  we  fling  about  us  unsparing  charges  of  the 
baseness  practiced  in  high  places  and  low;  but  if  one 
grows  really  serious  and  attempts  to  individualize  and  fix 
the  sin  to  its  point  of  responsibility,  we  turn  red  in  the 
face  and  pronounce  it  an  impertinence.  Humanity  is  sick, 
and  is  putting  little  check  on  indulgences  that  inflame  its 
disease ;  but  we  expect  it  to  get  well.  We  seem  to  think 
that  the  average  individual  can  be  rising  while  the  nation 
or  community  whose  common  life  he  represents  is  sinking. 
We  feel  quite  easy  about  ourselves  if  we  are  not  worse 
than  the  average.  We  take  little  concern  to  ourselves 
about  a  cure  for  our  moral  ailments.  Sometimes  we 
boast  of  our  expanding  knowledge,  and  look  to  that  as 
the  panacea  of  all  evils.  We  seem  to  think  there  is  some 
magic  in  the  acquaintance  with  a  few  more  facts  of  sci- 
ence, or  broader  ideas  of  human  life,  to  stay  the  eager 
passions  of  men  and  bring  us  moral  health.  But  the 
wounds  of  sin  do  not  heal  under  this  salve ;  their  cor- 
ruptions continue  to  flow.  Oh,  how  much  men  need  the 
sense  of  sin  that  the  atonement  strives  to  awake !  It 
must  go  before  amendment.  It  is  the  indispensable  pre- 


140  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

requisite.  We  cannot  grow  better  till  it  comes.  Indi- 
vidual sin,  need,  imperfection — ours,  yours,  mine — this 
must  be  felt  before  there  can  be  improvement  in  us.  The 
nation,  the  race,  can  improve  only  as  this  individual  con- 
science is  quickened,  and  its  sense  of  responsibility 
raised. 

But  when  this  comes  a  new  world  begins.  The  atone- 
ment sets  the  heaven  of  God's  love  open,  wide  open.  The 
Father  will  welcome  the  penitent,  and  pour  his  helping 
grace  into  the  soul  to  conquer  sin.  Life  will  get  a  new 
meaning.  The  very  evils  in  the  world  will  give  it  a  new 
zest,  by  giving  it  an  aim  and  a  work.  The  originality  of 
a  little  moral  earnestness  will  relieve  the  aching  emptiness 
of  its  routine,  and  lift  the  intolerable  weariness  of  its  ef- 
forts to  be  amused.  We  shall  wonder  that  life  hid  such 
glorious  meanings  for  us  close  along  our  path,  and  we 
failed  to  discover  them.  The  new  creation  rising  within 
us  and  around  us  will  be  hailed  with  a  deeper  and  steadier 
exultation  than  ever  greeted  the  old ;  a  loftier  anthem  will 
be  in  the  soul  than  when  the  morning  Stars  sang  together 
and  all  the  Sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy! 


Repentance  and  Forgiveness. 


Luke  xv:  17,  18,  19:  And  when  he  came  to  himself  he  said,  *  *  I 
will  arise  and  go  to  my  father,  and  will  say  unto  him,  Father,  I  have 
sinned  against  heaven  and  before  thee,  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be 
called  thy  son. 

1  John  i:  9:  If  we  confess  our  sins  He  is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive 
us  onr  sins  and  to  cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteousness. 

These  Scriptures,  taken  together,  bring  under  one  view 
repentance  and  forgiveness,  the  act  of  turning  from  sin, 
and  the  fruit  of  that  act  ever  received  in  the  inward 
cleansing  from  unrighteousness.  These  are  vital  truths 
in  the  teachings  of  Christ.  They  mark  the  starting-point 
of  the  Christian  life,  and,  I  think,  will  be  found  the  quick- 
ening impulse  in  every  incipient  effort  for  moral  improve- 
ment. 

I  have  incidentally  touched  upon  repentance  and  for- 
giveness in  treating  of  the  Atonement;  but  the  import- 
ance of  the  subject  demands  a  more  extended  discussion. 

It  were  well,  doubtless,  if  we  needed  no  repentance — if 
we  could  scan  every  step  of  our  past  and  challenge 
heaven's  scrutiny  and  claim  God's  approval.  But  no 
mortal  is  capable  of  that  degree  of  self-conceit.  We  have 
sinned;  we  are  imperfect.  That  is  the  universal  con- 
sciousness, more  or  less  clear.  Being  what  we  are,  no  act 
is  more  noble  in  us  than  repentance.  It  is  the  re-assertion 
of  the  soul's  supremacy  over  the  lower  nature.  It  is  proof 


142  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

that  the  moral  vitality  in  it  is  stronger  than  the  depravity 
of  its  disease.  It  is  spiritual  convalescence,  the  promise 
that  the  soul,  however  weak,  will  again  be  well. 

Repentance  is  the  declaration  of  war  against  one's  own 
sins  and  conscious  imperfections.  It  is  no  passive  sorrow 
or  languid  regret  for  what  has  been  done,  and  feeble  wish 
that  we  had  not  done  it;  it  is  a  confession  to  our  own 
heart,  and  if  the  case  demands,  to  the  injured  also,  that 
we  have  done  wrong,  a  sense  of  the  moral  weakness  in  us 
that  led  to  the  wrong ;  and  then  an  active,  vigorous  taking 
sides  practically  against  our  own  wrong  and  for  the  right. 
Purpose  is  the  decisive  element  in  repentance.  Feeling 
must  go  before  the  purpose,  no  doubt,  the  sense  of  sin 
which  says,  with  Paul,  "  The  law  is  holy,  and  the  com- 
mandment holy  and  just  and  good,  the  evil  is  in  me." 
This  recognizes  the  need  of  action.  Then  the  energetic 
Will  to  stop  the  sin  and  conquer  the  weakness  that  gave 
it  room,  and  to  abide  henceforth  in  the  law  from  which  it 
departed — this  only  can  consummate  the  change  which 
can  properly  be  called  repentance.  "  War  to  the  death 
and  no  quarter,"  is  the  motto  of  the  sincere  penitent,  as 
he  enlists  for  this  struggle  with  evil  in  himself.  The  crisis 
of  the  Prodigal's  repentance  was  the  purpose,  "  I  will  arise 
and  go  unto  my  father."  Not  the  degree  of  feeling,  but 
the  vigor  of  this  resolution  was  what  determined  the  re- 
sult. Action  was  what  carried  him  home  and  restored 
him  to  a  place  in  his  father's  house.  The  resolute  "  I  will  " 
was  the  pivot  on  which  he  turned  homeward. 


REPENTANCE  AND  FORGIVENESS.        143 

Now  observe:  The  Divine  forgiveness  is  never  to  be 
thought  of  as  separated  from  repentance.  It  is  ever  as 
early  and  as  full  as  the  repentance ;  never  an  instant  later 
or  less  complete.  How  can  we  know  this?  No  voice 
from  the  throne  of  the  Supreme  falls  on  the  ear,  saying, 
"  Thou  art  forgiven."  No  parchment  of  pardon  is  sent 
forth  attested  by  the  sign  and  seal  of  sovereign  Authority, 
commanding,  "  Let  this  soul  go  free."  How  can  we  fathom 
the  infinite  Mind  and  find  assurance  that  the  word  has 
passed  therein,  "I  forgive?"  The  answer  is  by  an  infal- 
lible witness  within — the  consciousness  of  restored  har- 
mony with  the  broken  law  of  the  Father,  and  so  with  the 
Father  from  whom  the  breach  alienated  us.  Forgiveness 
responds  to  repentance,  and  love  responds  to  forgiveness — 
the  witness  of  the  Spirit  in  our  spirits  that  we  are  the 
children  of  God.  We  need  no  other  parchment  of  pardon. 
It  is  the  nature  of  love  to  forgive  as  it  is  the  nature  of 
the  sun  to  shine;  and  "God  is  Love."  The  condition  of 
repentance  being  present,  it  is  as  impossible  for  the  fact 
of  forgiveness  to  be  absent  as  it  is  that  the  sun's  rays, 
where  every  obstructing  object  is  removed,  should  not 
make  it  light.  The  shadow  departs  with  the  dark  body 
that  casts  it;  the  divine  condemnation  goes  with  the  sin 
which  repentance  puts  away.  "  If  we  confess  our  sins, 
God  is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive  us  our  sins,  and  to 
cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteousness."  The  voice  of  God 
within  assures  our  forgiveness.  As  repentance  is  taking 
with  the  violated  law  against  ourselves  and  against 


144  A  SEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  violating  evil  in  our  own  hearts,  so  forgiveness  appears 
in  a  rising  delight  in  the  law  that  condemns  our  sin  and 
ourselves.  It  is  conscious  victory  in  the  warfare  with 
evil.  It  is  a  manly  sense  of  having  come  out  of  the  wrong 
and  of  being  heartily  in  the  right.  It  is  the  peace  and 
joy  of  conscious  harmony  with  God  welling  up  from  the 
fellowship  of  love.  It  is  the  incipient  realization  of  that 
health  of  soul  of  which  repentance  is  the  promise. 

Guard  against  a  half  idea  of  these  words  which  has 
done  infinite  mischief.  Ask  many  a  Christian  what  re- 
pentance is,  and  the  answer  would  be,  "  Sorrow  for  sin." 
Ask,  what  is  forgiveness?  And  the  reply  is,  "Taking 
away  penalty."  Both  answers  mislead.  Sorrow  there  is 
in  repentance,  no  doubt;  one  who  can  look  upon  a  wrong 
he  has  done,  or  a  wrong  in  himself,  and  feel  coldly  indif- 
ferent, is  not  in  the  way  to  repent;  he  must  feel  or  he 
will  not  act.  And  action,  energetic  purpose  moving  into 
execution,  rather  than  feeling,  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
central  force  of  repentance.  It  is  turning  from  the  wrong 
to  the  right.  It  is  forsaking  sin  by  righteousness,  and 
iniquity  by  turning  unto  the  Lord.  But  sorrow  alone  is  not 
repentance.  The  child  under  the  raised  rod  is  sorry  he 
has  disobeyed;  the  thief  in  the  hands  of  the  policeman  is 
sorry  for  his  theft;  the  murderer  marched  into  court  to 
receive  sentence  is  sorry  for  his  crime.  All  have  sorrow 
or  feeling  enough.  But  not  one  of  them  may  be  truly  re- 
pentant. It  is  sorrow  that  they  are  caught,  not  that  they 
have  broken  the  law.  It  is  regret  that  they  must  be 


REPENTANCE  AND  FORGIVENESS.        145 

punished,  not  remorse  that  they  have  sinned.  There  is 
no  condemnation  of  their  own  act ;  no  taking  sides  against 
themselves  with  the  law;  no  resolute  inward  turning 
from  the  sin  to  the  right.  Pardon  them  and  they  will  be 
plotting  to  repeat  the  crime  before  they  are  fairly  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  sheriff.  No  such  repentance  can  find 
forgiveness,  because  there  is  no  real  change  of  heart  toward 
the  law;  no  assent  to  it  as  good;  no  harmony  with  its 
justice;  no  joy  in  its  Giver.  The  law  that  punishes  is  a 
dread  and  a  hate ;  the  Lawgiver  a  terror  or  a  tyrant. 

And  let  us  beware  how  we  delude  ourselves  with  the 
idea  that  forgiveness  is  a  taking  away  of  penalty.  The 
soul  whom  God  forgives  has  to  bear  the  direct  penalty  of 
its  sin.  The  penitent  drunkard  bears  the  shattered  con- 
stitution of  his  bad  habits;  and  forgiveness  may  not  save 
him  from  premature  death.  The  bad  temper  carries  its 
jarred  and  morbid  nerves  long  after  others  have  forgiven 
and  forgotten  the  wounds  of  its  thrusts.  The  dishonest 
trader  who  has  been  for  many  years  in  bad  standing, 
struggles  under  debility  of  conscience  long  after  old  scores 
are  cleared  and  every  victim  has  reached  out  to  his  peni- 
tent endeavors  the  right  hand  of  fellowship.  The  sore 
remains  after  the  irritant  has  been  removed.  The  scar 
stays  after  the  sore  heals.  It  is  a  strong  delusion  which 
imagines  that  the  penalty  of  sin  goes  when  forgiveness 
comes.  But  this  forgiveness  does — which  is  better  than 
mere  removal  of  penalty — being  the  consciousness  of  re- 
stored harmony  with  law,  it  ceases  to  break  the  law.  It 


146  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

stops  incurring  new  penalties.  Its  delight  in  the  law  and 
its  love  of  the  Lawgiver  inspires  brave  endurance  and  good 
cheer  in  bearing  those  already  incurred  till  they  shall  have 
run  their  course.  And  that  is  the  appeal  with  which 
nature,  the  voice  of  God  speaking  in  our  own  experience, 
urges  to  early  repentance.  The  earlier  the  easier. 

We  must  not  confound  God's  forgiveness  with  the  par- 
don of  the  human  executive.  Human  law  has  an  arbi- 
trary penalty.  The  legislator  says  what  it  will  be  for  the 
given  crime.  The  chief  magistrate  may  say  it  shall  not 
be  inflicted.  That  takes  it  away.  The  prison  is  not  con- 
nected by  an  immutable  chain  of  cause  and  effect  with 
theft,  nor  the  gallows  with  murder.  Petition  the  Gov- 
ernor for  pardon,  and  if  he  says,  "  Let  the  prisoner  go  free," 
the  culprit  escapes  the  penalty  that  man  has  affixed  to  his 
crime.  But  in  God's  administration  the  law  is  self- 
executing.  The  sinner  is  his  own  executioner.  It  is  as  if 
the  prison  walls  began  to  close  round  the  thief  the  moment 
he  commits  the  theft,  or  the  murderer  felt  the  black  cap 
drawing  over  his  eyes,  and  the  fatal  drop  under  his  feet, 
and  the  noose  tightening  around  his  neck  in  the  very  act 
of  smiting  his  victim.  The  very  flow  of  the  forces  in  our 
constitution  brings  God's  penalty  for  sin — the  hard  heart' 
the  blunted  moral  sensibilities,  the  momentum  in  evil 
that  rushes  on  with  ever  increasing  impulse  to  repeat  the 
sin.  If  we  have  gained  the  right  view  of  God  as  being 
in  nature,  those  forces  are  the  action  of  God  himself,  the 
Omnipresent  in  whom  "  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 


REPENTANCE  AND   FORGIVENESS.  147 

being."  God  can  no  more  arrest  them  than  he  can  deny 
himself.  We  can  cease  hurling  ourselves  against  them ; 
we  can  stop  crossing  the  track  of  their  flow;  we  can,  by 
repentance,  come  into  harmony  with  them.  Then  the 
wounds  we  have  got  by  throwing  ourselves  across  their 
current  will  ere  long  heal,  and  we  shall  move  peacefully 
with  them  on  toward  the  home  of  the  soul.  But  God 
would  reverse  the  whole  system  of  his  moral  government 
if  he  should  take  away  the  penalty  of  these  immutable 
forces  as  the  chief  magistrate  takes  away  the  penalty  of 
human  law. 

Let  me  counsel  you,  again,  to  banish  carefully  the  habit 
of  thought,  fixed  by  ages  of  artificial  religious  teaching, 
which  looks  for  some  external  infliction  of  penalty  at  the 
hand  of  God  in  the  world  to  come.  The  old  Greeks  and 
Romans  had  their  Underworld  of  gloomy  shades,  with 
various  devices  of  torture;  the  Jews,  their  Sheol  and  Ge- 
henna, "  where  their  worm  dieth  not  and  the  fire  is  not 
quenched;"  and  the  Christian  Church  has  ever  had  its 
lake  of  fire  to  frighten  the  evil-doer.  These  gross  images 
have  been  literalized  in  the  common  mind  to  make  up 
their  ideas  of  the  future  state.  They  have  constituted 
the  capital  of  religious  sensationalists  to  alarm  the  ignorant 
and  unthinking.  And  even  where  these  images  are  re- 
fined into  something  less  gross,  the  inveterate  habit  of 
ages  still  lingers  that  thinks  of  God  as  coming  forth  from 
the  order  of  his  moral  rule  to  inflict  some  form  of  pain, 
some  lash  on  the  nerves  of  the  sinner.  There  is  an  unde- 


148  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

fined  dread  of  this  in  millions  who  would  now  laugh  at 
the  lake  of  fire.  I  will  not  say  that  this  is  never  a  useful 
restraint  on  men.  It  may  be  that  gross  natures  can  be 
reached  only  by  gross  ideas  of  penalty,  that  the  soul  of 
some  can  be  touched  only  through  the  sense ;  but  I  love 
to  think  better  of  the  general  intelligence.  Sure  I  am 
that  if  we  are  ever  to  have  a  religion  that  the  human 
mind  will  not  outgrow  and  reject  as  in  great  part  a  super- 
stition fit  only  for  children  and  savages  (and  not  fit  for 
them),  we  must  lay  aside  these  fictions  of  terror,  and  direct 
the  minds  of  men  to  the  real  penalty  of  sin  in  the  soul  of 
the  sinner,  the  spiritual  death  there  that  comes  with  the 
sin  as  fever  and  pain  and  diseased  condition  come  with 
the  poison  taken.  I  do  not  believe  it  necessary  or  useful 
to  terrify  the  people  at  large  with  absurdities  which,  if 
real,  would  make  God  a  demon  and  the  universe  a  horror 
to  every  being  of  holy  sympathies  within  its  limits.  I 
believe  they  can  be  made  to  feel  the  restraint  of  that  self- 
executing  law,  written  in  every  fiber  and  nerve  of  their 
bodies,  and  read,  if  they  will,  in  every  motion  of  their 
minds  and  hearts,  whose  penalty,  when  broken,  is  as  cer- 
tain as  that  the  pulse  of  moral  life  shall  throb  on  in  the 
soul.  Continue  to  appeal  to  animal  fear  and  you  will 
have  Christians  whose  religion  is  an  animal  fear,  marked 
by  the  mercurial  fickleness  and  unsteadiness  of  that  feel- 
ing. Speak  to  the  moral  sense,  and  the  powers  you  ad- 
dress will  awake. 

Let  us  say,  then,  that  the  dread  of  an  outward  infliction 


REPENTANCE  AND  FORGIVENESS.        149 

of  suffering  at  the  hand  of  God  is  an  illusion.  You  have 
no  need  to  ask  the  forgiveness  which  removes  such  a  pen- 
alty; there  is  no  such  penalty  to  be  removed.  God  has 
no  intention  to  so  punish;  never  had;  never  will  have. 
It  is  a  mere  phantom  of  the  guilty  brain.  The  guilt- 
stricken  soul  is  doomed,  indeed,  by  its  very  condition, 
deranged  by  its  own  evil  act,  to  forebode  the  wrath  of 
some  angry  Nemesis,  the  vague  fear  says  not  what.  It  is 
the  voice  of  nature  kindly  warning  it  to  stop,  turn  back, 
and  not  work  remediless  ruin  in  itself.  But  God  is  not 
its  enemy.  His  hand  will  not  hurl  the  ruin.  No !  the 
worst  that  the  soul  has  to  fear  from  the  "  Father  Almighty" 
is  the  word,  "  Let  him  alone !  he  has  chosen  his  way  and 
his  portion;  he  refuses  any  part  in  me;  he  is  joined  to  his 
idols ;  let  him  alone ! "  And  this  word  is  never  spoken 
save  through  the  laws  of  the  soul's  own  activities. 

Equally  delusive  is  the  idea  that  God  will  go  outside 
of  established  law,  or  set  aside  his  moral  order,  to  repair 
the  moral  mischiefs  we  may  do  ourselves.  Wherever 
Christianity  has  been  represented  as  a  scheme  for  this 
purpose,  sooner  or  later  a  lower  tone  of  conscience,  a  re- 
laxed sense  of  the  obligation  of  law  and  of  the  absolute 
necessity  of  obedience,  has  followed.  Men  have  been 
ready  enough  to  infer  that  a  Sovereign  who  was  so  ingeni- 
ous in  circumventing  the  demands  of  his  own  laws,  would 
certainly  find  some  way  to  repair  any  ruin  they  could 
cause.  The  law  loses  its  hold.  It  becomes  but  a  thread 
of  tow  in  the  flame  of  human  passion  and  desire.  The 


150  A  SEASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

feeling  takes  possession  of  the  mind  that  God  is  not  in 
earnest  with  us.  The  state  of  mind  it  induces  was  well 
illustrated  by  the  words  of  a  lecturer  heard  by  many  of 
us  a  few  evenings  since,  in  this  place.  Said  he  "  When 
my  little  girl,  playing  around  the  house,  breaks  anything, 
she  says  at  once,  '  Never  mind  !  Papa  will  fix  it  !'  She 
knows  there  is  a  strong  love  at  hand  that  can  and  will 
set  things  right.  So  we  are  children  at  play  in  this  world 
which  God  has  given  us  for  a  home.  However  badly 
wrong  affairs  may  go,  we  may  comfort  ourselves  with 
the  assurance  that  the  great  Father  will  mend  all.  No 
need  of  despondency  and  despair."  Well,  to  the  spirit  of 
obedience  this  is  a  safe  and  beautiful  trust ;  to  the  careless 
and  self-indulgent,  it  is  not  only  false  in  fact,  but  it  is 
sure  to  be  taken  as  a  license  to  riot.  It  is  not  a  truth  for 
any  who  are  not  already  under  the  law  of  love.  It  is  a 
corrupting  delusion,  cruel  as  the  grave,  to  all  others.  Our 
Father  in  heaven  will  set  all  things  right;  he  will  mend 
what  can  be  mended  in  the  order  of  his  immutable  work- 
ing; but  we  do  well  to  remember  that  we  may  break 
what  he  will  not  mend.  Wound  the  young  tree  slightly 
and  God  will  mend  it.  The  law  of  vegetable  life,  work- 
ing steadily  on  year  after  year,  at  last  grows  over  the 
wound,  and  hides,  though  not  wholly  restores,  the  weak 
place  in  the  wood.  Gash  your  own  body,  so  that  you 
touch  no  vital  part,  nor  jraise  a  fatal  fever  in  the  blood, 
and  God  will  mend  the  blow.  The  vital  force,  busy  with 
friendly  ministries  to  repair  the  violence  you  have  done 


.    .REPENTANCE  AND   FORGIVENESS.  151 

your  own  flesh,  will  heal  the  wound,  though  it  leaves  a 
scar.  Law  is  merciful.  But  break  an  egg  and  God  will 
not  mend  the  violence.  You  have  put  it  beyond  the  re- 
pairing force  of  law.  God  will  stand  by  his  fixed  order. 
Send  a  bullet  through  a  vital  part  of  the  brain,  or  strike 
a  dagger  through  the  heart,  and  God  will  not  mend  the 
harm.  You  have  gone  beyond  the  limits  of  mercy  under 
law.  There  is  no  healing  agency  to  reach  the  case.  And 
so  all  nature  and  all  life  teem  with  proofs  that  God  loves 
to  repair  our  breaks  and  heal  what  can  be  healed,  but 
are  equally  strown  with  demonstrations  that  we  must  not 
take  his  goodness  in  mending  our  mischiefs  as  the  annul- 
ling of  law,  or  in  the  smallest  degree  slackening  the  ten- 
sion of  its  obligation.  We  may  mar  so  that  he  will  not 

1 

mend.     We  know  what  to  expect. 

We  have  seen  the  necessity  of  repentance  in  order  to 
forgiveness.  Sin  once  done  remains  an  eternal  fact ;  there 
is  no  recall.  The  alienation  from  infinite  Truth  and  Good- 
ness it  ever  carries  with  it  remains,  unless  the  sinner  takes 
sides  against  his  sin.  The  law  changes  not;  conscience 
changes  not;  God  changes  not.  The  only  possible  return 
to  harmony,  therefore,  among  these  immutable  factors,  is 
that  change  in  the  heart  of  the  sinner  which  expels  the 
element  of  discord.  'Alienation  ceases  when  sincere  con- 
fession begins.  The  contrite  heart  God  will  not  despise. 

But  let  us  turn  from  the  necessity  to  a  few  concluding 
words  on  the  privilege  of  repentance.  To  an  imperfect 
being  this  is  heaven's  best  gift,  for  it  opens  the  way  for 


152  A   REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

all  other  good.  It  is  for  the  prodigal  the  privilege  of  re- 
turn to  his  father's  house.  It  is  for  the  hungry  the 
privilege  to  be  fed.  It  is  for  the  naked  the  privilege  to 
be  clothed.  It  is  for  the  sick  the  privilege  to  be  well 
again.  It  is  for  the  dying  the  privilege  of  return  to  life 
and  the  full  joys  of  life.  It  is  for  the  imperfect,  conscious 
of  their  defects,  the  open  way  of  return  to  perfection. 

We  may  better  appreciate  the  privilege  by  a  view  of  its 
contrast.  The  deepest  touch  in  Milton's  picture  of  the 
misery  of  a  lost  spirit  is  the  dark  impossibility  of  repent- 
ance. The  Arch  Fiend  pauses  in  his  flight  to  earth  for 
the  seduction  and  ruin  of  man: 

"Horror  and  doubt  distract 
His  troubled  thoughts,  and  from  the  bottom  stir 
The  Hell  within  him;  for  within  him  Hell 
He  brings,  and  round  about  him;  nor  from  Hell 
One  step,  no  more  than  from  himself,  can  fly 
By  change  of  place;  now  Conscience  wakes  Despair 
That  slumbered,  wakes  the  bitter  memory 
Of  what  he  was,  what  is,  and  what  must  be 
Worse:  of  worse  deeds  worse  sufferings  must  ensue. 

Me  miserable  !  which'way  shall  I  fly, 
Infinite  wrath  and  infinite  despair? 
Which  way  I  fly  is  Hell;  myself  am  Hell, 
And  in  the  lowest  deep  a  lower  deep, 
Still  threatening  to  devour  me,  opens  wide, 
To  which  the  Hell  I  suffer  seems  a  Heav'n." 

A  soul  broken  away  from  God's  harmony,  at  conscious 
discord  with  itself,  and  by  all  the  action  of  its  own  pow- 
ers throwing  that  discord  into  more  dreadful  and  hopeless 
confusion.  From  the  incipient  steps  towards  this  condi- 
tion repentance  is  the  privilege  of  return.  It  touches 


.  REPENTANCE  AND  FORGIVENESS.         153 

with  the  foot  a  firm  rock  which  stays  the  soul  sinking 
into  the  mire  by  the  helpless  weight  with  which  it  has 
loaded  itself.  It  is  a  firm  support  which  the  sinner  may 
grasp  and  feel  himself  drawn  upward  by  a  power,  mighty 
to  save,  back  to  light  and  life.  Recovered  harmony  with 
himself,  the  father's  house,  the  feast  of  joy,  the  bosom  of 
God — all  this  for  consenting,  not  to  anything  degrading 
to  himself,  but  to  see  his  own  imperfections,  and  ask 
God's  help  to  put  them  away. 


The  Holy  Spirit. 


John  xiv:  16,  17:  That  He  may  abide  with  you  forever,  even  the 
Spirit  of  truth. 

The  complete  man  is  a  three-fold  being.  He  lives  in 
three  worlds  here  on  earth.  He  has  powers  to  discern  the 
objects  of  each.  His  senses  reveal  material  things;  his 
intellect  opens  to  him  a  world  of  science,  truths,  princi- 
ples, causes  and  laws;  his  conscience  and  moral  affections 
bear  him  into  a  world  of  spiritual  relations  and  activities, 
a  life  of  duty,  sympathy,  aspiration  and  love.  None  of 
us  doubt  the  reality  of  the  material  world,  the  solid  earth 
under  our  feet,  with  its  soil  and  rock,  its  colors,  shapes, 
sounds,  odors  and  tastes.  The  open  senses  never  leave 
one  moment  without  proof  of  the  reality  of  these,  or  of 
our  relation  to  them.  The  intellect  also  is  out  very  early 
on  its  scientific  explorations,  gathers  and  classifies  facts, 
thinks,  reasons,  comes  to  conclusions,  makes  many  mis- 
takes, revises,  corrects,  and  goes  on  to  enlarge  its  stores  of 
knowledge.  This  costs  effort.  The  price  of  large  learn- 
ing is  large  toil.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  see  clearly  in  the 
world  of  science  as  it  is  in  the  world  of  sense.  It  is 
harder  for  the  mind  to  think  than  for  the  senses  to  feel. 
The  more  valuable  the  objects  discovered,  the  more  pains 
required  to  find  them.  No  wonder,  then,  that  clear  and 
lull  spiritual  discernment  comes  slowest  and  latest,  only 


THE   HOLY   SPIRIT.  155 

with  the  greatest  care.  "The  natural  first,  afterward  that 
which  is  spiritual,"  says  Paul.  This  higher  world  must 
be  conquered;  we  are  not  born  to  its  throne.  We  begin 
in  the  natural ;  advance  carries  us  into  the  spiritual.  And 
as  it  costs  the  best  training  and  highest  effort  of  the  pow- 
ers of  intellect  to  attain  the  broadest  and  clearest  under- 
standing of  the  natural,  the  knowledge  of  science  and 
practical  affairs,  so  the  right  view  of  the  spiritual  ^can 
never  be  ours  without  due  discipline  and  endeavor.  Let 
this  fact  conciliate  us  towards  the  demands  which  this 
subject  makes  upon  our  close  attention. 

There  is  a  peculiarity  in  the  teachings  of  Jesus  in  respect 
to  our  spiritual  relations  which  it  is  of  the  utmost  import- 
ance that  we  should  understand.  It  is  the  heart  of  his 
religion.  He  contemplates  man  as  now  living  in  close 
and  influential  relations  with  the  spirit  world.  He  is  not 
getting  ready  to  live  in  it,  but  lives  in  it.  The  powers  of 
that  world  live  in  him.  Influences  from  thence  color  his 
thoughts  and  feelings,  suggest  aims  of  life,  bias  his  plans 
and  purposes,  and  impel  his  activities.  He  is  a  denizen  of 
the  unseen  world  now.  He  lives  and  moves  and  has  his 
being  in  its  vital  relations.  And  this  is  no  life  in  the  air. 
Faith  is  the  power  that  discerns  its  realities.  It  "  is  the 
substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not 
seen."  It  is  the  soul's  eye  for  the  spiritual  world.  God 
the  ever-present  Spirit,  is  the  great  fact  of  that  world, 
Faith  sees  Him,  feels  Him,  knows  Him  as  the  indwelling 
Spirit,  and  so  makes  the  out-goings  of  the  soul's  life,  in 


156  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

its  varied  manifestations  to  men,  bear  in  them  qualities 
that  can  emanate  only  from  a  Divine  source.  But  to  do 
this  it  must  be  faith  ;  not  mere  cold  belief,  but  real  spiritual 
sight,  the  deepest,  most  living  sense  of  actual  relations  in 
the  heart.  Mark  the  difference.  Great  spiritual  blindness 
and  corruption  have  come  of  confounding  the  two.  Be- 
lief is  of  the  intellect ;  faith  is  of  the  heart  and  conscience. 
Belief  looks  at  facts;  faith  lays  hold  of  spiritual  powers. 
Belief  assents;  faith  affirms.  Belief  searches  for  truth; 
faith  finds  the  truth.  Belief  is  passive ;  faith  throbs  with 
vital  energy.  Belief  is  morally  indifferent ;  faith  is  alive 
with  keen  moral  interest.  Belief  admits  the  spiritual 
fact  and  turns  away  careless  of  its  claim ;  faith  feels  its 
obligation  and  lives  on  its  motive.  To  belief  God  is  a 
tradition;  to  faith  a  living  Presence.  To  belief  He  is  a 
cold,  distant  fact  somewhere  behind  the  sky;  to  faith  He 
is  a  warm  Love,  an  active  Goodness,  at  the  center  of  soul's 
life.  Ye  believe  in  God,  says  Jesus,  believe  also  in  me. 
That  is,  make  your  belief  a  faith ;  bring  that  Most  High 
God,  Omnipotent  Creator  and  Ruler  of  the  world,  in 
whom  your  traditions  teach  you  to  believe,  near  to  you 
as  a  Father,  within  you  as  a  Holy  Spirit,  to  guide  you 
into  all  truth  and  abide  in  you  forever  as  the  Comforter. 
Then  you  will  see  and,  seeing,  have  peace. 

This  is  the  central  truth  of  Christ's  teachings.  What 
the  sun  is  to  the  solar  system  is  this  doctrine  of  the  in- 
dwelling, guiding,  life-giving  Spirit  to  the  words  of  Christ 
on  man's  duty  and  destiny.  They  revolve  in  its  light, 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT.  157 

and  hold  their  orbits  and  harmony  under  its  power.    In 
the  outset  of  his  public  life  he  had  proclaimed  the  truths 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  by-laws,  so  to  speak,  or 
practical  code  of  the  kingdom  of  God  which  he  was  found- 
ing among  men,  regulating  man's  duties  to  his  fellow  men ; 
a  pure  morality,  having  much  in  common  with  other 
religions,  but  carrying  its  law  inward  to  the  secret  thoughts 
and  motives,  and  exalting  the  whole  even  then  by  giving 
the  Father  in  Heaven  as  the  model  and  law  for  the  spirit 
and  conduct  of  man ;  but  here,  standing  in  the  shadow  of 
his  own  cross,  giving  his  dying  counsels  to  his  friends,  he 
opens  their  relation  to  God  and  the  eternal  world  in  this 
promise  of  the  Holy  Spirit.     He  dwells  upon  this  truth 
with  fond  repetition.     He  varies  its  form  in  a  score  of  dif- 
ferent presentations.     He  insists  that  they  will  find  more 
of  comfort  and  light  in  it  than  in  his  presence,  making  it 
even  better  for  them  that  he  should  go  away.    He  crowns 
his  instructions  with  this  one  word  of  life  and  power,  giv- 
ing force  and  effect  to  the  whole;  for  well  he  knew  that 
it  was  only  in  the  living  sense  of  this  immediate  relation 
to  God  that  human  conscience  would  get  and  maintain  its 
proper  tone,  or  human  senses  rise  out  of  their  lusts,  or  the 
human  heart  out  of  its  selfishness.     The  law  of  human 
duty  must  draw  its  vitality  from  this  truth.     The  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  would  become  a  dead  letter  without  this 
sense  of  a  present  God. 

This  Word  of  the  Spirit  raises  the  faith  of  Christ  out 
of  a  dry  code  of  duty  and  makes  it  a  religion.     Along 


158  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

with  the  commandment  it  sends  the  impulse  and  the 
power  to  obey.  Under  it  the  law  of  duty  is  not  a  whip 
but  a  lamp.  The  feet  love  the  path  it  lights.  Eagerness 
to  obey  outruns  all  naked  rules  of  action.  The  child  glo- 
ries in  pleasing  the  Father  under  whose  eye  he  acts.  The 
motives  that  Jesus  gives  to  faith  are  the  strongest  and  the 
steadiest  the  heart  ever  feels. 

It  is  no  less  a  Word  of  reason  than  of  faith.  Grant 
that  there  is  a  God  and  you  have  affirmed  Christ's  prom- 
ise of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  its  fulness.  Is  the  Infinite  One 
a  reality;  and  can  He  be  absent?  Can  He  be  indifferent? 
Can  He  withhold  his  aid,  in  such  measure  as  is  possible 
for  us  to  receive,  from  our  good  endeavors?  The  thought 
would  undeify  Him.  To  doubt  the  promise  is  to  stand 
balancing  between  Christ  and  atheism.  So  certainly  is 
Christ's  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  a  truth  based  in  the  consti- 
tution of  man,  that  it  was  an  inference  of  reason  before 
it  was  a  revelation  from  his  lips.  The  higher  spirits  of 
the  heathen  world  caught  its  light.  Socrates  regarded 
himself  as  ever  moving  under  the  guidancp  of  a  good 
Spirit.  The  biographer  of  Epictetus  says  that  the  sense 
of  the  Divine  Presence  was  ever  so  vivid  hi  him  that  it 
made  his  whole  life  a  hymn  of  praise  to  God.  And  Seneca 
affirms  in  language  almost  identical  with  that  of  Jesus, 
that  "  the  Spirit  of  God  is  ever  with  us,  yea,  dwells  within 
us."  Our  own  Emerson,  thirty  years  ago,  when  the  heat 
of  reaction  from  Christian  dogmatism  around  him  was  at 
its  hight,  and  he  seemed  farther  from  sympathy  with 


THE   HOLY  SPIRIT.  159 

Christian  thought  than  he  has  appeared  in  his  riper  days, 
wrote  such  words  as  these :  "  Man  is  a  stream  whose 
source  is  hidden.  Our  being  is  descending  into  us  from 
we  know  not  whence.  *  *  I  am  constrained  every  mo- 
ment to  acknowledge  a  higher  origin  for  events  than  the 
will  I  call  mine.  As  with  events  so  is  it  with  thoughts. 
When  I  watch  that  flowing  river,  which,  out  of  regions  I 
see  not,  pours  for  a  season  its  streams  into  me,  I  see  that 
I  am  a  pensioner;  not  a  cause,  but  a  surprised  spectator 
of  this  ethereal  water.  That  I  desire  and  look  up,  and 
put  myself  in  the  attitude  of  reception,  but  from  some 
alien  energy  the  vision  conies.  *  *  *  A  wise  old 
proverb  says,  'God  comes  to  us  without  bell;'  that  is,  as 
there  is  no  screen  or  ceiling  between  our  heads  and  the 
infinite  heaven,  so  is  there  no  bar  or  wall  in  the  soul  where 
man,  the  effect,  ceases,  and  God,  the  cause,  begins.  The 
walls  are  taken  away.  We  lie  open  on  one  side  to  the 
deeps  of  spiritual  nature,  to  the  attributes  of  God." 
Words  without  significance  till  we  read  in  them  essen- 
tially Christ's  doctrine  of  the  ever-present  and  helping 
Spirit  of  God.  I  could  wish  he  had  made  them  warmer 
with  personal  love.  I  fear  they  will  hardly  reach  the 
hearts  of  children  under  fifty  of  average  mental  breadth. 
They  are  not  for  the  many.  They  are  less  simple  than 
the  words  of  Jesus,  less  profound,  less-  comprehensive. 
They  speak  to  the  abstract  intellect,  and  not  as  the  great 
Teacher's,  to  the  whole  soul.  They  contemplate  passive 
reception  -of  the  Divine  influence,  not  reciprocal  or  re- 


160  A  SEASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

sponsive  communion.  They  promise  no  "fellowship  of  the 
Spirit."  Yet  for  those  who  can  receive  them  they  mean 
nothing  less  than  "  Immanuel,"  God  with  us. 

We  are  living,  then,  every  moment  in  the  presence  of 
spiritual  Reality.  It  ought  not  to  be  with  our  eyes  shut. 
We  ought  to  see.  That  which  is  so  near,  which  is  kin- 
dred to  our  spirit,  the  source  of  our  best  life,  the  measure 
and  blessing  of  whose  influence  depends  upon  our  recog- 
nition and  voluntary  reception,  ought  not  to  be  held  as  a 
distant  expectation  or  a  vague  perhaps.  But  let  no  one 
imagine  that  the  effort  to  discern  the  realities  of  the  Spirit 
will  put  one  on  the  watch  for  phenomena  of  the  senses,  or 
for  moods  of  feeling  that  come  of  our  mercurial  physical 
sensibilities.  These  are  of  the  earth  earthy.  They  are  of 
the  body,  not  of  the  Spirit.  We  need  not  expect  to  see  a 
ghost.  One  pities  the  shallow  conceit  which  thinks  it 
hears  signs  of  spiritual  presence  and  power  in  the  dry 
clatter  of  the  material,  or  feels  them  is  those  exalta- 
tions of  bodily  sensibility  which  might  just  as  well  come 
of  wine  or  opium.  This  is  mere  surface.  The  Spirit 
goes  deeper.  He  reveals  spiritual  things  to  the  spirit. 
He  abides  in  the  soul.  He  is  known  there  as  health  is 
known  in  the  body,  by  permanent  condition.  "The 
fruits  of  the  Spirit  are  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering, 
gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meekness,  temperance."  Where 
these  are  God  abides.  These  are  His  attributes  and  ac- 
tivities. The  life  of  that  soul  which  feels  and  radiates 
these  has  God  at  the  center.  The  proof  that  God  dwells 


THE   HOLY   SPIKIT.  161 

• 

within  is  to  be  found,  not  in  any  transient  ecstasy  or 
happy  feeling,  but  in  the  steady  reign  of  these  virtues  in 
heart  and  life.  No  experience  however  brilliant,  no  rapt- 
ure however  ecstatic,  that,  passing  away,  does  not  leave 
these  solid  virtues  regnant  over  all  lusts  of  the  flesh  and 
spirit,  affords  the  least  evidence  that  God  has  even  paid  a 
visit  to  the  soul,  much  less  taken  up  his  abode  therein. 
No  wonders  that  amaze  the  senses,  however  startling,  have 
any  tendency  in  themselves  to  produce  these  fruits  of  the 
Spirit;  they  oftener  create  a  prurient  craving  for  more 
startling  wonders  as  stimulants  to  keener  sensations. 
The  mind  is  diverted  from  truth  and  duty  to  stand  in 
gaping  wonder.  The  good  purpose  grows  fickle.  The 
nerves  are  strained  into  morbid  irritability.  The  excite- 
ment of  the  senses  over  "  phenomena "  usually  acts  as  a 
stimulant  to  the  "works  of  the  flesh."  Moreover,  no 
degree  of  emotion  tends  in  itself  to  awaken  or  establish 
the  virtues  of  the  Spirit.  Feeling  does  not  make  the 
heart  true.  Even  good  feeling,  gushing  with  benevolence, 
easily  degenerates  into  puling  sentimentalism.  It  over- 
flows with  tender  demonstrations,  but  when  you  touch 
its  principle  with  temptation,  test  its  conscience,  or  ir- 
ritate its  temper  with  opposition,  you  discover  how  empty 
and  selfish  and  essentially  false  it  is — a  mere  hot  vapor 
that  falls  flat  and  powerless  at  the  first  touch  of  a  con- 
densing chill.  The  melting  philanthropist  turns  savage 
and  burns  to  torture  those  he  cannot  sway.  The  fire  of 
feeling  does  not  evidence  the  Spirit.  It  depends  on  the 


162  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

• 

nature  of  the  heat.  The  most  intense  is  not  likely  to  be 
the  most  permanent.  When  God  comes  to  the  soul  in  the 
Divine  gift  of  the  Spirit,  the  good  will  He  inspires  is  com- 
prehensive of  all — the  opponent  who  thwarts  as  well  as 
the  ally  who  helps,  the  enemy  that  curses,  as  well  as  the 
friend  that  caresses.  God's  charity  is  not  partial.  And 
the  characteristic  of  the  faith  which  receives  and  cherishes 
the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  indwelling  Guest  and  Guide,  is 
that  it  makes  the  idea  of  God  the  ideal  of  human  love  and 
duty.  It  binds  the  conscience  to  that  ideal.  It  exacts  of 
itself  a  love  like  that  of  the  Father  in  Heaven,  who  mak- 
eth  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good.  It  cannot 
be  satisfied  with  less.  It  condemns  itself  for  every  secret 
motion  within  of  a  contrary  spirit.  God  is  there  as  wit- 
ness. It  recognizes  His  presence.  It  feels  that  God  loves 
men  in  its  love;  and  if  it  does  not  love  them  as  He  loves, 
it  is  resisting  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  very  power  of  faith 
to  raise  men  to  a  higher  moral  and  spiritual  life  is  largely 
in  this  fact,  that  it  holds  them  in  its  secret  thought  and 
desire,  as  well  as  in  external  act,  to  this  divine  ideal.  It 
is  the  very  perfection  of  truth  and  justice  and  honor  and 
honesty  and  love  identified  with  the  sense  of  God's  being 
and  presence  in  the  soul.  The  abiding  supremacy  of  these 
virtues  is  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  within.  The  perma- 
nent condition  is  the  fullest  demonstration,  not  the  exal- 
tation of  the  emotions.  The  presence  and  power  of  the 
Spirit  may  be  as  grandly  manifest  in  the  deliberate  strug- 
gle with  temptation,  he  feelingless  perseverance  in  un- 


THE   HOLY   SPIRIT.  1(53 

pleasant  duty,  or  the  severe  calm  under  the  long  wear 
of  adversity,  as  in  the  most  rapt  ecstasy  of  contemplation 
or  prayer.  The  cold-blooded  refusal  to  do  wrong  or  per- 
severance in  the  good  way,  because  the  idea  of  God  is 
the  ideal  of  duty  and  life,  is  often  the  very  sublimity  of 
(inspiration.  To  see  GoJ  in  emotion  and  not  see  Him  in 
conscience  and  purpose,  is  to  see  substance  in  fog  and  deny 
it  in  land  and  rock. 

We  are  never  to  think  of  the  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
in  us  as  separate  from  our  own  action.  The  Divine  and 
the  human  blend.  Our  faculties  are  organs  for  the  Spirit. 
The  power  is  from  above,  but  the  reception  and  acting 
forth  of  the  Divine  energy  depends  upon  us.  God  works 
in  us  to  will  and  to  do,  yet  we  work  out  our  own  salva 
tion.  The  soul  draws  its  lifo  from  the  Spiritual  as  really 
as  the  body  draws  its  life  from  the  material.  Unless  you 
plow  and  sow  and  provide  bread,  and  feed  the  body,  it 
cannot  perform  its  functions.  It  lives  by  bread.  Yet 
when  the  body  does  its  work  you  never  say  that  it  is  the 
food  that  acts.  It  eats  and  assimilates  and  makes  its 
bread  a  vital  part  of  itself,  and  on  the  strength  thus  drawn 
from  nature  fulfils  its  office.  In  a  coarse  way  this  may 
symbolize  our  dependence  on  God.  By  self-restraint  and 
self-denial  we  put  away  the  temptations  that  would  feed 
our  souls  on  poison.  In  our  prayer  and  our  search  after 
truth  we  ask  the  bread  of  Heaven.  The  Holy  Spirit  is 
the  answer.  "  We  eat  angel's  food."  We  assimilate  the 
Divine  gift.  "  We  are  made  partakers  of  the  Divine  na- 


164  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

tare."  The  spirit  of  God  becomes,  in  a  sense,  a  vital  part 
of  our  own  spiritual  powers,  to  the  extent  we  are  able  to 
receive,  so  that  when  the  holy  aspirations  and  affections 
rise  within  us  they  are  our  own,  and  when  the  good  pur- 
pose goes  forth  on  its  errand  of  divine  love  it  is  our 
purpose.  We  act  out  the  energies  that  God  pours  into 
our  being  and  powers.  That  spiritual  unity  which  is 
contemplated  in  the  prayer  of  Jesus  is  realized:  "  As  thou, 
Father,  art  in  me  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be 
one  in  us.  And  the  calm  sense  of  power  and  of  rest  that 
makes  such  a  faith  strong  is  the  consciousness  of  this  in- 
dwelling of  God.  There  is  a  sense  of  dependence,  but  it 
is  a  weakness  that  leans  on  Omnipotence.  "  When  I  am 
weak  then  am  I  strong." 

This  intimacy  of  union  and  absolute  dependence  of  the 
soul  upon  the  Divine  iufluence  lend  a  fearful  significance 
to  those  scriptures  which  warn  us  against  resisting  the 
Holy  Spirit.  To  refuse  where  we  know  that  God  com- 
mands, to  indulge  where  we  are  sure  that  He  must  frown, 
to  will  where  the  conscience  warns  us  He  has  forbidden — 
this  is  to  break  the  union  with  the  Source  of  life,  and  feed 
on  poison  in  the  place  of  bread.  It  is  to  court  spiritual 
weakness  and  death.  "  Grieve  not  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God 
whereby  ye  are  sealed  unto  the  day  of  redemption."  To 
resist  is  to  rivet  our  own  fetters.  It  is  treachery  to  our 
own  liberty  and  life. 

Another  important  inference  follows  here :  The  capacity 
of  inspiration,  or  one's  measure  of  the  Spirit,  depends 


THE   HOLY   SPIRIT.  165 

largely  upon  one's  own  endeavor.  Like  every  power  of 
the  mind  it  is  capable  of  education.  It  begins  in  weak- 
ness; if  rightly  cultured,  it  grows  to  power.  The  Divine 
Spirit  is  eternally  one  and  the  same;  but  human  capacity 
to  receive  His  influence  varies  indefinitely.  "  He  touches 
hallowed  lips  with  fire,"  but  they  are  never  the  lips  of  an 
idiot.  God  never  gives  his  deepest  messages  of  truth  to 
men  from  the  tongue  of  a  child.  The  child  may  be  our 
teacher,  but  it  is  from  his  artless  unconsciousness,  rather 
than  any  distinct  grasp  and  utterance  of  truth.  The 
child  will  "  speak  as  a  child,"  even  though  taught  of  the 
Spirit.  The  manifestations  of  the  Spirit  in  the  young  will 
be  colored  by  the  qualities  of  youth.  The  thought  of  di- 
vine things  in  a  mind  that  is  mature  in  holy  contempla- 
tion and  experience  will  differ  from  the  thought  of  the 
novice  in  religion,  as  the  thought  of  mathematics  in  the 
mind  of  a  Newton  differs  from  the  thought  of  one  who 
has  just  learned  to  add  simple  numbers.  Both  are 
correct;  but  the  one  comprehends  the  whole  range 
of  the  principles  of  the  science,  the  other  only  its 
most  primary  truth.  We  shall  look  in  vain  for  lives  that 
will  move  before  us,  under  the  fullest  guidance  of  the  in- 
dwelling Spirit,  until  we  cease  to  expect  the  divine  power 
to  come  in  flashes  of  light  or  arbitrary  and  sudden  gifts 
of  grace,  and  learn  that  we  must  prepare  the  way  for  His 
largest  coming  by  a  life-long  education  of  our  own 
hearts. 

This  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  is  also  a  very  practical  one 


166  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

for  the  life  that  now  is.     As  we  are  living  in  the  spirit 
world  and  dealing  with  spiritual  realities  at  every  step 
along  the  path  of  our  life,  the  Holy  Spirit  comes  to  abide 
in  us  as  a  present  guide,  a  monitor  of  temper  in  our  every- 
day affairs.     God  aims  to  fit  us  for  living  in  the  present, 
not  for  living  in  the  future,  for  which  we  do  not  yet  need 
to  be  fit.     Our  work  is  here.     Our  relations  to  spiritual 
powers  are  here.     Our  duties  are  here.     What  we  need  to 
know  is  how  to  regulate  the  temper  and  order  the  con- 
duct aright  here.     The  faith  that  is  so  lofty  and  ethereal 
that  it  cannot  attend  vigorously  to  the  work-day  duties 
of  home  and  trade  and  neighborly  kindness,  is  a  little  too 
high  for  earth  and  quite  too  low  for  heaven.     It  keeps 
company  with  the  coffin  of  the  Arabian  Prophet,  suspended 
midway  between  the  two,  and  as  having  to  do  mainly 
with  the  dead  were  better  buried  with  them.    The  religion 
which  the  living  need  must  be  ready  for  solid  service  here. 
Our  faith  in  the  spiritual  will  doubtless  contemplate  the 
present  existence  of  all  the  good  that  have  lived  in  the 
past  ages  of  the  world;   it  will  not  doubt  that  Abraham 
and  Moses  and  Isaiah  and  Paul  and  John  are  living  and 
doing  God  service  somewhere  in  the  universe  at  this  mo- 
ment; God  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead  but  of  the  living; 
but  our  individual  relation  to  these  distinguished  person- 
ages, so  far  as  God  permits  us  to  know,  is  of  the  least  pos- 
sible consequence.     It  is  idle  to  waste  thought  in  guesses 
upon  that  matter.     Our  relations  to  our  next-door  neigh- 
bor, and  to  the  trader  of  whom  we  buy,  and  to  the  cus- 


THE   HOLY   SHIRIT.  167 

tomer  to  whom  we  sell,  and  to  the  inmates  of  our  own 
home,  are  of  the  utmost  consequence  now.  Anl  it  is  to 
fit  us  for  our  right  part  in  these  relations  that  God's  Spirit 
is  promised  to  abide  in  us.  To  think  toward  those  who 
are  thus  near  us  as  we  believe  God  thinks,  to  feel  toward 
them  as  God  feels,  to  act  toward  them  as  we  believe  God 
would  act  if  he  were  in  our  place  in  very  deed,  to  make 
the  idea  of  God  thus  the  ideal  of  our  own  temper  and 
life,  is  the  good  for  which  we  most  need  the  Holy  Spirit. 
And  most  solemn  and  searching  is  the  thought  that  as 
we  deal  every  day  by  others  God's  Spirit  deals  by  us. 
By  a  law  that  is  self -executing,  that  never  remits,  never 
postpones  its  award,  we  are  becoming  according  as  we 
think  and  act  in  these  near  relations  to  those  around  us. 
With  the  judgment  wherewithal  we  judge  are  we  judged. 
Just  according  to  the  spirit  we  bear  within  us  is  the  ever- 
present  working  of  the  Spirit  of  God  or  the  spirit  of  evil, 
penetrating  and  shaping  the  inmost  life  of  the  heart. 

Finally:  the  influence  and  power  of  religion  in  men 
will  be  just  according  as  they  hold  vitally  in  their  faith 
and  practically  for  their  conduct,  this  doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  It  is  the  substance  of  religion.  It  is  the  one  cen- 
tral truth  of  faith.  Real  faith  which  does  not  include  or 
comprehend  it  there  cannot  be.  "I  will  dwell  in  them 
and  walk  in  them ;  and  I  will  be  their  God  and  they  shall 
be  my  people,"  was  the  promise  of  old.  When  Jesus  came, 
his  deepest  word  but  reiterated  aud  expanded  this  prom- 
ise:  "  If  a  man  love  me  he  will  keep  my  words,  and  my 


168  A  EEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

father  will  love  him,  and  we  will  come  unto  him,  and 
make  our  abode  with  him;"  "I  will  pray  the  Father  and 
He  shall  give  you  another  Comforter,  that  He  may  abide 
with  you  forever,  even  the  Spirit  of  Truth."  God  dwel- 
ling in  man  and  man  dwelling  in  God,  living  consciously 
in  the  divine  Life — this  is  the  truth  of  truths.  It  is  com- 
prehensive of  all  good.  There  is  no  ignorance  for  which 
it  is  not  light,  no  sorrow  for  which  it  is  not  comfort;  no 
weakness  for  which  it  is  not  strength;  no  joy  or  strength 
or  wisdom  or  prosperity  of  the  soul  for  which  it  is  not  the 
security  of  permanence.  It  is  the  one  most  central  dis- 
tinction of  man  from  the  lower  orders  of  life.  It  is  his 
crown  of  glory.  God  in  man  and  man  in  God,  making 
the  idea  of  God  the  ideal  of  man,  and  rising  ever  into 
higher  realizations  of  that  ideal — this  is  the  whole  sub- 
stance of  meaning,  if  we  can  interpret  Him,  in  the  Person 
of  Jesus.  It  comprehends  the  whole  truth  which  his  life 
and  cross  aim  to  impress.  It  is  religion.  And  it  is  the 
'religion  for  universal  humanity ;  shut  up  within  no  creed, 
limited  to  no  time  or  place,  bound  to  no  rite  or  ceremony, 
the  monopoly  of  no  sacred  order  or  caste,  wherever  God 
and  a  human  heart  are  together  there  is  present  every- 
thing essential  to  its  highest  worship.  Man  has  no  com- 
pleteness without  this  truth — in  it  the  divinest  complete- 
ness. It  is  the  reason  of  prayer,  the  joy  of  praise,  the  life 
and  substance  of  worship — all  worship  but  dumb  show 
or  meaningless  sound  till  this  truth  is  its  inspiration 
Glorious  will  be  that  day  when  men  shall  drop  all  debate 
over  the  uncertain  and  unsettled,  and  center  the  whole 
thought  and  aspiration  of  their  religion  upon  this  one 
truth  of  the  abiding  Spirit — God  in  man  and  man  in  God. 


The  Resurrection. 


John  v:  28,29:  Marvel  not  at  this;  for  the  hour  is  coming  in  the  which 
all  that  are  in  the  graves  shall  hear  his  voice,  and  shall  come  forth,  they 
that  have  done  good  unto  the  resurrection  of  life,  and  they  that  have 
done  evil  unto  the  resurrection  of  judgment. 

With  the  aim  in  the  present  discussion  of  attaining  to 
the  real  thought  of  Jesus  respecting  the  resurrection,  it 
will  not  be  necessary  or  profitable  to  spend  time  over  the 
question  of  the  literal  raising  of  the  body,  the  identical 
flesh  and  bones  which  we  carry  here.  It  would  be  a 
waste  of  words.  Such  literal  resurrection  no  longer  com- 
mands the  respect  of  intelligent  faith.  We  are  not  dis- 
tressed with  the  perplexity  of  the  Sadducees  who  came  to 
Jesus  with  the  problem  what  was  to  be  done  in  the  res- 
urrection with  so  many  bodies  when  a  woman  had  had 
seven  husbands.  The  chief  concern  with  us  is  to  learn 
what  becomes  of  the  souls. 

Let  us  also  dismiss  as  equally  puerile  the  idea  of  a 
mechanical  resurrection,  or  the  arbitrary  interference  of 
any  form  of  external  force  or  power  to  bring  the  soul  up 
from  the  dead.  The  evidence  that  banishes  the  idea  of  a 
mechanical  creation  of  man,  and  compels  us  to  see  him 
coming  forth  from  the  Divine  hand  in  the  order  of  law, 
insures  the  early  disappearance  of  all  such  artificial  notions 
of  the  resurrection.  No  special  exertion  of  the  divine 
power  is  needed.  The  rising  up  of  the  soul  at  the  disso- 


170  A   REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

lution  of  the  body  is  as  natural  as  birth.  When  nature 
has  advanced  through  her  prescribed  course  of  changes  and 
the  hour  strikes,  this  event  comes  as  manly  strength  comes 
to  the  full-grown  body,  or  as  wrinkles  and  gray  hairs 
come  to  old  age ;  it  is  a  part  of  the  soul's  history  or  life. 
It  comes  of  forces  inherent  in  the  human  constitution. 
This  is  in  entire  harmony  with  the  teachings  of  Jesus  and 
his  Apostles,  when  fairly  interpreted,  and  also  agrees  with 
the  preintimations  of  the  life  to  come  in  human  experi- 
ence. 

It  may  be  inferred,  therefore,  that  the  resurrection  is 
an  inseparable  incident  of  the  soul's  existence,  that  there 
are  forces  and  powers  in  the  very  constitution  of  our  being 
that  survive  the  death  of  the  body  as  naturally  as  the  life 
of  the  seed-grain,  to  use  the  famous  illustration  of  Paul, 
goes  into  the  sprouting  germ  and  survives  the  dissolution 
of  that  grain ;  that  each  will  rise  into  the  spirit  life  iden- 
tically the  same  being  that  dwelt  in  the  body  here,  bear- 
ing the  same  character  and  qualities,  intellectual,  social, 
moral  and  spiritual,  that  were  acquired  in  the  body;  hence 
that  there  will  be  the  same  limitless  variety  of  character 
in  the  world  to  come  that  we  witness  here,  all  the  grades 
of  good  and  evil  that  we  see  passing  out  of  the  life  on 
earth,  all  beginning  there  as  they  left  off  here;  pure  and 
loving  and  aspiring  to  nobler  hights  of  holy  attainment  if 
such  was  their  temper  among  men,  vicious  and  hateful 
and  loving  to  do  mischief  if  such  a  spirit  had  been  the 
growth  of  their  earthly  life.  In  the  words  of  the  text, 


THE  RESURRECTION.  171 

"They  that  have  done  good  shall  come  forth  unto  the 
resurrection  of  life ;  and  they  that  have  done  evil  unto  the 
resurrection  of  judgment  or  condemnation."  To  what 
glory  the  good  may  advance  in  their  progress,  or  to  what 
lower  depths  of  animal  stupidity  and  darkness  the  evil 
may  descend,  we  cannot  say ;  but  grant  the  continuance 
of  personal  identity  and  the  admission  carries  with  it  an 
evidence  amounting  to  moral  certainty  that  there  passes 
into  the  life  to  come,  essentially  unchanged,  all  that  vast 
variety  of  moral  condition,  all  those  grades  of  good  and 
evil,  that  we  witness  as  the  final  product  of  the  discipline 
of  life  on  earth.  We  can  see  no  power  in  death  to  radi- 
cally change  the  moral  status  or  likings  or  tendencies  of 
the  soul.  The  resurrection  is  continued  life.  The  outward 
conditions  will  doubtless  be  different,  but  that  inward  life 
of  the  spirit  which  goes  far  to  determine  what  outward 
conditions  shall  be  to  us,  is  the  same.  Those  who  wake 
from  death  will  be  themselves  still. 

But  here  the  question  with  which  Paul  had  to  deal 
meets  us,  "With  what  body  do  they  come?"  Not  this 
mortal  flesh,  insists  the  Apostle  with  emphasis.  "Flesh 
and  blood  cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God."  Not  the 
body  that  dies  is  the  body  "  that  shall  be,"  he  again  en- 
forces with  his  illustration  of  the  growing  grain.  This 
but  affirms  what  Jesus  implies  when  he  says  that  in  the 
resurrection  "they  are  as  the  angels  of  God;"  and  again, 
"  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life."  What  sense  these 
latter  words  could  bear,  as  applied  to  the  reorganizing  of 


172  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

the  dust  of  the  body,  we  are  unable  to  see.  And  when 
we  take  into  view  the  well  known  facts  connected  with 
the  sustenance,  growth  and  dissolution  of  the  body,  chang- 
ing every  constituent  particle  several  times  during  an 
average  life,  as  it  does,  and  often  giving  up  its  life  at  last 
only  to  become  a  part  of  other  living  organisms,  we  won- 
der at  the  violence  done  to  reason  as  well  as  to  language 
in  the  interpretation  which  has  extorted  a  material  resur- 
rection from  the  teachings  of  Jesus  and  Paul. 

And  yet  we  must  believe  there  will  be  a  body.  We 
cannot  conceive  of  a  spirit  existing  separate  from  form. 
As  the  metaphysician  will  tell  you,  a  finite  spirit  cannot 
be  omnipresent;  cannot  fill  infinite  space.  It  must  be 
somewhere.  This  is  to  say  that  it  must  occupy  in  space 
a  definite  position  in  relation  to  all  other  objects  in  space. 
It  must  have  dimensions,  greater  or  less.  Dimensions 
imply  shape  or  form.  And  form  that  is  not  a  mere 
vacuum  or  nothing  implies  substance  that  has  outline  in 
space.  Hence  we  are  prepared  to  accept  that  inspiration 
of  Paul  which  tells  us  that  there  is  a  "  spiritual  body " 
(soma  pneumatikori),  in  contradistinction  to  the  natural 
body  (soma  psuchikori) ;  that  over  this  spiritual  body  the 
death  that  dissolves  the  natural  hath  no  power,  but  when 
nature  puts  off  this  "  body  of  corruption,"  the  spirit  that 
is  vital  with  the  principle  of  eternal  life  will  be  clothed 
with  a  body  incorruptible;  "for  this  corruptible  must  put 
on  incorruption,  and  this  mortal  must  put  on  immortality; 
and  so  shall  be  brought  to  pass  the  saying  that  is  written, 


THE   KESUKRECTION.  173 

'  Death  is  swallowed  up  in  victory ! '  "  Once  grant  the 
continued  life  of  the  spirit,  and  no  sounder  word  of  reason 
ever  came  from  human  lips. 

In  regard  to  the  nature  of  this  spiritual  body,  it  would 
be  over-curious  to  inquire.  We  may  well  believe  that  in 
the  complex  nature  of  man  is  a  third  force  or  element 
which  our  science  calls  neither  matter  nor  mind,  which 
no  scalpel  or  microscope  or  most  searching  chemical  analy- 
sis ever  reveals,  which  counts  for  nothing  on  the  scales, 
but  which,  more  subtle  than  electricity,  more  enduring 
than  adamant,  yea,  possibly  as  eternal  as  the  being  of 
God  himself,  the  life  of  the  spirit  weaves  into  a  garment 
and  shapes  into  an  instrument  for  the  immortal  part  in  its 
celestial  activities,  by  a  law  as  natural  and  uniform  as 
that  under  which  the  physical  life  builds  and  molds  the 
body  for  our  services  on  earth.  And  so  "  God  giveth  it  a 
body  as  it  hath  pleased  Him."  This  may  well  be  one  of 
those  things  in  heaven  and  earth  of  which  our  philosophy 
has  never  dreamed.  Even  now  the  foremost  investigators 
in  physics  are  telling  us  that  there  must  be  some  hidden 
force  or  universal  ether,  filling  all  space,  undetected  and 
unmeasured  by  any  of  their  scientific  methods,  yet  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  account  for  some  of  the  most  common 
phenomena  that  meet  our  eyes.  The  argument  against 
immortality  in  the  plea  that  no  substance  save  that  which 
is  liable  to  dissolution  can  serve  as  organ  and  form  for  the 
eternal  life  of  the  spirit,  is  merely  the  assumption  of  ig 
norance.  What  did  the  world  know  of  the  universal  force 


174  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

of  gravity  before  the  time  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton?  Who 
suspected  the  presence  of  such  elements  as  electricity  and 
magnetism  in  nature  four  or  five  generations  ago?  And 
who  shall  say  that  tomorrow  will  not  discover  still  greater 
wonders  in  the  Creation,  of  whose  mysteries  we  have  just 
begun  to  learn  a  little?  True  science  is  to  be  respected 
always,  but  when  it  travels  beyond  experience  and  as- 
sumes to  affirm  or  deny  where  it  can  only  guess,  it  ceases 
to  be  science ;  and  the  faith  that  communes  with  God  will 
rest  in  the  assurance  that  the  instincts  of  the  divine  life 
it  feels  within  are  a  truer  and  safer  guide. 

It  was  necessary  to  notice  the  questions  I  have  touched 
upon  in  the  discussion  of  this  subject.  The  history  of  the 
doctrine  and  the  position  in  which  it  has  left  the  popular 
mind,  makes  the  demand.  Yet  we  do  well  to  remember 
that  our  knowledge  at  present  of  the  external  and  inci- 
dental conditions  of  the  life  beyond  the  grave,  can  be  but 
partial  and  very  inadequate.  It  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  we  shall  be.  It  does  not  need  to  appear.  It  is  safe 
for  us  to  wait  till  time  and  change  shall  reveal  what  shall 
be  in  the  life  hereafter,  if  only  we  give  due  heed  to  what 
we  may  certainly  know  of  the  resurrection  life  as  it  is 
shaping  itself  within  us  now.  This  brings  us  to  the  prac- 
tical part  of  our  subject. 

One  of  the  truths  of  highest  practical  importance  for 
this  age  to  consider  is  the  fact  that  we  make  our  own  fu- 
ture, and  that  we  are  making  it  every  day.  It  will  be 
no  arbitrary  creation.  No  force  will  crush  us  into  an  evil 


THE   RESURRECTION.  176 

condition  which  we  have  not  prepared  for  ourselves  and 
made  inevitable  by  our  own  voluntary  action  and  choice- 
No  power  external  to  our  own  being  can  raise  us  out  of 
such  a  condition  into  its  opposite,  and  fill  us  with  the 
blessedness  of  a  holy  state.  The  immutable  terms  of 
moral  action  and  character  seal  this  certainty.  If  we 
make  a  bad  future  for  ourselves,  it  will  be  our  own  fault. 
God  will  not  be  to  blame.  It  will  not  be  because  He  did 
not  place  opportunity  and  aid  within  our  reach  to  make 
it  otherwise.  If  we  make  a  good  future  for  ourselves,  it 
will  be  only  by  the  right  voluntary  use  of  those  opportu- 
nities and  aids  which,  under  God,  lie  open  to  our  choice. 
No  chance  decides  the  issue.  No  power  of  malevolence 
or  benevolence  forces  it,  nor  can.  We  are  the  arbiters  of 
our  own  destiny. 

The  life  of  the  resurrection  is  growing  within  us  now. 
We  are  shaping  its  results  every  day.  Our  choices,  our 
pleasures,  our  business,  pur  ruling  passion,  all  those  activi- 
ties of  body  and  mind  that  organize  themselves  in  our  be- 
ing as  fixed  habit,  character  and  tendency,  are  molding 
the  creatures- we  are  to  be.  Not  less  certainly  does  the 
life  at  work  in  the  cocoon  or  chrysalis  determine  the 
creature  that  will  ere  long  break  forth  into  the  light  and 
air,  than  the  moral  life  that  is  acting  in  us  now  d  eter 
mines  what  sortr  of  beings  will  emerge  from  our  dissolving 
bodies.  The  life  that  is  in  harmony  with  the  highest  laws 
of  our  being,  that  grows  strong  in  noble  effort  to  do  right 
and  to  do  good  in  the  world,  must  come  forth  in  the  like- 


176  A    REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

ness  of  the  Son  of  God.  A  life  that  rends  those  laws  as  if 
they  were  but  cobwebs  drawn  across  the  path  of  its  im- 
patient desires  and  passions,  that  deranges  the  whole 
being  with  its  excesses — that  bad  life  can  come  forth  only 
in  a  dark  contrast.  And  every  one  in  his  degree  between 
these  extremes,  according  as  he  lives  here.  This  is  hardly 
more  than  the  assertion  of  continued  personal  identity. 

So  Jesus  is  but  speaking  out  of  the  very  heart  of  reason 
and  nature  when  He  proclaims  the  resurrection  life  a 
present  reality :  "  Verily,  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  the  hour 
is  coming,  and  now  is,  when  the  dead  shall  hear  the  voice 
of  the  Son  of  God,  and  they  that  hear  shall  live."  The 
hour  is  now  ;  the  dead  hear  now  ;  the  hearer  lives  now. 
Again  :  "He  that  believeth  on  me  hath  everlasting 
life;"  and  again,  "  He  that  heareth  my  word  and  believeth 
on  Him  that  sent  me,  hath  everlasting  life,  and  shall  not 
come  into  condemnation,  but  is  passed  from  death  unto 
life."  Lucke,  an  acute  German  interpreter,  says  of  this  : 
"If  a  higher  kind  of  life,  a  resurrection  process,  prior  to 
bodily  death,  is  represented  by  'hath'  and  'is passed'  then 
life  and  everlasting  life  are  not  to  be  understood  of  a  life 
that  begins  after  physical  death,  but  of  the  true 
and  eternal  Messianic  life,  which  begins  even  here." 
The  celebrated  Meyer  makes  this  comment :  "  The  be- 
liever already  possesses  eternal  life  in  this  world,  that  is%, 
in  the  temporal  development  of  that  moral  and  blessed 
life  which  is  independent  of  death,  and  which  will  rise  to 
its  highest  perfection  and  glory  at  the  coming  of  Christ." 


THE    RESURRECTION.  177 

Tholuck  adds  these  words  :  "  To  him  who  by  faith  in  Christ 
has  obtained  entrance  into  an  inward  communion  of  life 
with  him — to  him  death  is  no  interruption,  but  only  a 
completion  of  his  existence."  Paul,  in  like  language, 
speaks  of  a  present  resurrection  as  the  prize  for  which  he 
was  running  the  Christian  race,  "  That  I  may  know  him 
(Christ)  and  the  power  of  his  resurrection,  and  the  fellow- 
ship of  his  suffering,  being  made  conformable  to  his  death, 
if  by  any  means  I  might  attain  unto  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead.  Not  as  though  I  had  already  attained,  either 
were  already  perfect;  but  I  follow  after,  if  that  I  may 
apprehend  that  for  which  I  also  am  apprehended  of  Christ 
Jesus.  Brethren,  I  count  not  myself  to  have  apprehended 
— i.  e.,  to  have  attained  the  perfection  of  the  resurrection 
life;  but  this  one  thing  I  do,  forgetting  those  things  which 
are  behind,  and  reaching  forth  unto  those  things  which 
are  before,  I  press  toward  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the 
high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus."  Jesus  was  his 
ideal,  "  The  Resurrection  and  the  Life "  to  him  now  ; 
not  a  life  that  was  to  be  given  him  in  some  future  day, 
but  beginning  now  ;  not  an  event  in  which  he  was  to  be 
passive,  but  an  attainment  for  which  he  must  struggle: 
not  the  work  of  another  upon  him,  but  a  growing  life 
within  him ;  not  a  gift  thrown  to  him,  but  a  prize  to  be 
won  by  him.  He  was  struggling  to  realize  his  ideal,  to 
be  a  perfectly  Christ-like  man.  The  life  begins  here,  cul- 
minates in  eternity  ;  just  when,  in  date  of  time,  we  can- 
not tell — just  when,  in  date  of  character,  the  soul  becomes 
perfectly  like  Christ. 


178  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

Now,  let  us  consider  how  this  life,  which  we  should 
struggle  to  attain,  manifests  itself,  and  the  care  it  needs 
to  give  it  a  full  and  healthy  growth. 

We  all  know  that  there  is  a  natural  life  within  us  that 
must  decay.  It  is  a  good  life  that  God  has  given  us  for 
the  time,  but  it  feeds  on  the  perishable,  and  must  perish 
like  that  which  sustains  it.  The  senses  of  the  body  early 
reach  the  climax  of  their  strength.  The  zest  of  food  is  keen- 
est in  childhood;  the  eye  is  clearest  in  youth;  the  ear  will 
detect  every  sound  at  ten  that  it  can  at  fifty,  and  many 
that  it  cannot  at  seventy.  The  life  of  the  senses  must  de- 
cline. Nature  writes  their  doom.  Cherish  them  ever  so 
carefully,  refine  them  to  ever  so  exquisite  a  delicacy,  by 
and  by  lethargy  and  numbness  come  over  them.  The  eye 
grows  dim,  the  ear  dull,  and  no  dainty  can  tease  the  pal- 
ate into  zest.  So  of  a  whole  world  of  pleasures  that  de- 
pend upon  the  spring  and  vigor  of  the  senses — the  feast, 
the  dance,  the  ride,  the  gatherings  for  social  chat  and 
mirth,  even  the  excitements  of  pecuniary  gain  and  the 
exultations  of  successful  ambition.  These  wear  out.  The 
time  comes  when  the  quiet  corner  at  home  is  better  than 
all  of  them.  Good  for  their  uses  by  the  way,  essential  in 
their  place,  they  are  nevertheless  stamped  with  decay. 
They  are  of  that  life  of  nature  which  must  die.  But  we 
know  as  well  that  there  is  a  life  of  the  spirit  which  only 
increases  in  the  keenness  of  its  sensibility  and  relish  for 
its  objects  as  the  years  grow  into  old  age.  It  may  lie  dor- 
mant in  early  years,  it  may  fail  to  be  quickened,  it  may 


THE   RESURRECTION.  179 

be  smothered  under  excesses  of  worldliness;  but  it  is  a  life 
which  every  heart  knows  that  consecrates  itself  in  any 
degree  to  the  pure  service  of  humanity.  It  wakes  in  the 
love  that  goes  forth  to  do  good.  It  is  the  life  which  that 
noble  minister  of  Boston  feels  when  he  says  that  he  can- 
not live  without  his  poor.  It  is  the  life  which  many  a 
pastor  feels  glowing  in  every  sensibility  of  his  being  as  he 
turns  away  from  some  abode  of  want  or  suffering  with  the 
consciousness  that  he  has  poured  the  balm  of  healing 
sympathy  into  some  crushed  heart,  or  spoken  words  that 
cheer  the  gloom  or  rouse  the  good  hopes  and  ener- 
gies of  some  souls  that  were  sinking  into  darkness. 
It  is  the  life  that  Florence  Nightingale  felt  like  a 
warm  light  of  Heaven  diffusing  its  radiance  through  the 
hospitals  of  sick  and  wounded  soldiers,  attracting  her  to 
her  toils  amid  those  scenes  of  suffering  with  a  charm 
stronger  than  the  devotee  of  pleasure  ever  felt  in  ball-room 
or  theater,  making  the  home  of  groans  and  unsightly 
miseries  the  source  of  a  higher  joy  to  her  beautiful  spirit 
than  ever  came  from  the  place  of  song  and  laughter.  It 
is  conscious  affinity  with  God,  the  Infinite  Goodness.  It 
is  not  a  belief  that  it  shall  live;  it  is  living.  And  it  lives 
more  and  more.  Its  good  work  gives  it  an  appetite  that 
never  palls.  The  joy  in  a  deed  that  puts  a  song  in  a  sad 
human  heart  is  not  less,  but  more,  than  it  was  in  the  same 
act  ten  years  ago.  Such  repetition  never  wearies,  but  stim- 
ulates. Wash  the  reek  of  his  low  contact  from  the  body 
and  soul  of  the  inebriate,  and  see  him  stand  up  a  man  once 


180  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

more,  and  will  you  not  be  the  readier  to  do  the  same  kind- 
ness for  another  in  the  same  case  ?  Teach  the  ignorant, 
awaken  the  vicious  to  holy  purposes,  see  the  divine  life  in 
them  growing  into  established  character,  and  will  not  the 
reward  you  feel  draw  you  on  to  higher  endeavors  ?  It  is 
the  banquet  of  God,  to  which  no  one  who  tastes  ever  needs 
new  invitation.  This  life  grows  with  years;  and  when 
the  active  powers  have  failed,  and  old  age  has  nothing 
but  love  to  give,  the  heart  is  a  fountain  of  Divine  good- 
ness, that  pours  forth  its  streams  in  larger  volume  than 
ever  before.  There  is  nothing  so  divine  as  love  to  give. 
Love  is  the  life  that  gives  itself.  It  is  an  immortal  youth. 
And  so  this  life  of  love,  the  blessed  present  resurrection, 
which  only  enlarges  as  the  body  wears  out  with  years  and 
service,  triumphs  over  death,  and  at  last  passes  upward  to 
its  larger  and  freer  sphere  of  activity. 

For,  it  is  to  be  noticed,  this  life  knows  itself  as  the  vic- 
tory over  death.  It  feels  that  it  cannot  die.  Death  is  not 
real ;  it  is  "  abolished."  The  fear  of  death  is  but  the  child's 
fear  of  the  dark.  This  life  knows  that  no  form  of  dark- 
ness can  hide  a  danger  in  which  it  will  not  be  as  safe  as 
in  the  clearest  light.  Every  place  is  as  safe  as  where  it 
now"  is.  Let  the  body  crumble ;  let  the  fever  burn  out  its 
poor  life,  or  consumption  waste  its  vigor,  or  the  bullets 
of  an  enemy  riddle  its  heart,  or  the  poisonous  vapors  of 
the  burning  mine,  a  thousand  feet  below  the  pure  air  and 
sunlight,  smother  its  breath,  or  the  sudden  explosion  rend 
limb  from  limb — these  can  no  more  touch  that  inward 


THE    RESURRECTION.  181 

life  than  the  rocket  exploding  in  the  night  sky  can  wound 
the  moon.  It  is  hidden  in  God.  It  is  bound  up  in  the. 
Divine  Life.  It  is  as  safe  from  harm  as  the  heart  of  God 
Himself. 

Under  this  view,  how  plain  the  essential  question  of 
our  destiny  becomes  !  We  know,  if  we  will  but  consider, 
whether  we  are  living  only  in  that  life  of  nature  which  must 
die,  or  in  that  life  of  the  spirit,  that  life  of  duty  and  love, 
which  rises  in  ever-growing  strength  toward  God,  its 
source.  We  know  to  what  the  one  and  the  other  must 
come.  We  have  only  to  make  our  choice.  And  so  no 
words  could  more  fitly  close  the  discussion  of  this  great 
theme  than  those  with  which  Paul  impresses  its  final  prac- 
tical lesson  :  "  Therefore,  my  beloved  brethren,  be  ye  stead- 
fast, unmovable,  always  abounding  in  the  work  of  the  Lord, 
forasmuch  as  ye  know  that  your  labor  is  not  in  vain  in 
the  Lord." 


The  Judgment  Day. 


John  vii,  48 :  He  that  rejecteth  me,  and  receiveth  not  my  worda 
hath  one  that  judgeth  him ;  the  word  that  I  have  spoken,  the  same 
shall  judge  him  in  that  day. 

If  the  idea  of  the  final  judgment  here  announced  could 
be  flashed  suddenly  upon  the  minds  of  many  Christians,  it 
would  startle  them.  That  they  are  in  the  last  day,  that 
the  word  of  Christ  is  now  judging  them,  that  the  process 
of  separation,  "one  from  another,  as  a  shepherd  divideth 
his  sheep  from  the  goats,"  is  now  going  on,  and  that  each 
is  moving  to  the  right  hand  or  the  left  by  the  very  work- 
ing of  the  word  of  truth  within  him,  according  as  he  re- 
ceives or  rejects,  is  a  thought  that  has  never  crossed  their 
minds.  Their  religious  training  has  never  impressed  it; 
their  own  reflection  and  experience  have  never  suggested 
the  truth.  Yet,  if  I  have  been  able  to  study  the  sayings 
of  Jesus  on  this  subject  to  any  purpose,  this  is  precisely 
the  idea  he  meant  to  convey.  In  the  place  of  this  truth, 
that  goes  to  the  conscience  like  a  swift  arrow,  a  present, 
practical  force,  the  church  has  for  ages  treated  her  chil- 
dren to  an  outward  scene,  an  imposing  pageant,  stimu- 
lating to  the  artistic  imagination,  but  robbed  of  all  spirit- 
ual influence  by  its  external  pomp  terrorizing  the  senses, 
and  of  all  practical  force  by  being  postponed  indefinite 


THE  JUDGMENT  DAY.  183 

ages  into  the  future.  Most  of  you  will  readily  recognize 
the  picture  as  it  was  thrown  upon  my  boyish  imagination 
by  the  preaching  to  which  I  listened,  and  lingered  there 
with  the  tenacity  of  early  impressions  far  into  my  later 
years — a  vast  amphitheater,  whose  breadth  would  crowd 
back  the  bordering  hills  of  the  widest  plain,  gathering 
within  it  all  the  generations  of  time,  just  called  up  by  the 
judgment  trumpet  from  the  sleeping  dust,  a  countless 
throng,  a  shoreless  sea  of  human  faces ;  at  one  side  to'wer- 
ing  a  throne  of  terrific  splendor  ;  on  ifc  seated  the  awful 
form  of  the  Almighty  Judge,  his  head  white  with  dread- 
ful glory,  his  eyes  flaming  with  fires  that  burn  into  every 
soul,  a  hushed  silence  upon  all  those  myriads,  each  waiting 
in  trembling  suspense  as  one  by  one  is  called  forth,  the 
old,  the  middle-aged,  the  child,  the  infant,  each  in  turn 
compelled  to  answer ;  not  one  allowed  to  escape ;  even  the 
holiest  saints  trembling  under  the  ordeal :  out  of  the  open 
books,  containing  the  record  of  "the  deeds  done  in  the 
body,"  each  soul  reads  the  verdict,  "Come,  ye  blessed,"  or 
"Depart,  ye  cursed,"  and,  bowing  to  the  inexorable  decree, 
passes  to  the  right  hand  or  to  the  left ;  the  scene  laid 
somewhere  in  the  upper  ether ;  time  gone,  eternity  begun, 
and,  to  complete  the  picture,  this  old  earth,  on  the  last 
round  in  its  distant  orbit,  dry  and  ripe  for  doom  by  ages 
of  sin,  hangs  burning  in  the  lurid  flames  of  the  last  confla- 
gration. You  know  how  pulpit  sensationalists  have  used 
this  Apocalyptic  imagery,  with  all  the  terrific  variations 
their  inventive  imaginations  could  lend.  Your  own  young 


184  A  SEASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

nerves  have  probably  quivered  with  momentary  fright 
before  its  lurid  colors.  Literalized  from  the  Oriental 
imagery  of  the  Bible,  you  looked  upon  it  as  painted  by 
the  finger  of  God.  It  came  to  you  as  bearing  the  seal  of 
divine  authority.  It  did  not  occur  to  your  young  thoughts 
to  question  the  ludicrous  absurdities  in  the  stupendous  fic- 
tion— the  time  it  would  take  for  the  grand  session  to  dis- 
pose of  all  the  cases  that  had  been  accumulating  on  the 
docket,  at  the  rate  of  sixty  a  minute,  one  every  second, 
through  all  the  centuries  of  history;  the  lawyer's  task  it 
would  be  for  each  waiting  spectator  to  grasp  and  profit  by 
the  voluminous  testimony,  and  the  weariness  of  standing 
out  the  interminable  trials.  But  the  world  has  grown  old 
enough  to  ask  these  questions,  which  our  young  minds 
did  not  think  to  ask.  Religion  is  suffering  from  the  ex- 
posure of  these  transparent  fictions  with  which  her  teach- 
ers have  so  long  frightened  the  world.  We  must  come 
back  to  reason  and  common  sense.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
Jesus  had  no  such  impossible  absurdity  in  mind  with  his 
imagery  of  the  last  day.  Blundering  interpreters  may 
mistake  figure  for  fact,  and  see  a  pageant  where  the 
speaker  or  writer  saw  only  a  truth  or  idea ;  but  the  origi- 
nating mind  always  knows  whether  it  is  dealing  in  imag- 
inations or  in  literal  description.  Jesus  was  not  one  to 
amuse  his  hearers  with  empty  words  on  such  a  theme.  Let 
us  inquire  what  he  did  mean: 

I.  In  regard  to  the  date  of  the  last  day.     The  Son  of 
Man  was  to  be  revealed  from  Heaven,  to  come  in  his 


JHE  JUDGMENT  DAY.       .,  185 

kingdom,  come  to  reign,  come  to  judge  the  world.  When  ? 
On  one  occasion,  the  disciples,  in  amazement  at  the  asser- 
tion that  not  one  stone  of  their  magnificent  temple  should 
be  left  upon  another,  pointedly  asked  the  teacher :  "  Tell 
us,  when  shall  these  things  be,  and  what  shall  be  the  sign 
of  thy  coming  and  of  the  end  of  the  world  ? "  In  answer, 
Jesus  first  cautioned  them  to  be  on  their  guard  against 
deceivers,  and  then,  with  the  annunciation  of  commotions 
and  miseries  that  should  overwhelm  the  nation,  more  with- 
ering than  old  Prophet  had  ever  denounced  upon  the  back- 
sliding people,  he  limited  the  date  with  this  emphatic 
close :  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  this  generation  shall  not 
pass  till  all  these  things  be  fulfilled."  Turn  to  any  relia- 
ble commentator  on  these  passages,  and  he  will  tell  you 
that  "  the  end  of  the  world,"  or  aeon,  as  here  used,  means 
simply  the  end  of  the  age  or  dispensation,  according  to 
the  prevailing  belief  among  the  Jews  that  the  Messiah 
would  bring  that  dispensation  to  a  close,  and  inaugurate  a 
new  age  of  far  happier  conditions  to  their  nation.  Hence 
Olshausen  says  :  "  We  do  not,  therefore,  scruple  to  accept 
the  simple  explanation  which  alone  suits  the  text,  that 
Christ  speaks  of  his  coming  as  coincident  with  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem  and  with  the  downfall  of  the  Jewish 
state."  This  corresponds  with  the  signs  of  his  coming,  for 
which  the  disciples  asked.  When  the  Gospel  had  been 
preached  through  all  the  nations  then  known;  when  the 
abomination  of  desolation,  the  standard  of  the  victorious 
Roman  legions,  was  borne  in  triumph  into  the  Holy  Place ; 


186  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

when  the  stones  of  the  temple  were  thrown  down,  and  the 
plough-share  driven  through  the  very  foundations  on 
which  they  rested;  when  the  daily  sacrifice  was  taken 
away,  and  the  old  temple- worship  made  an  impossibility, 
then  the  end  came — the  old  dispensation  was  no  more,  the 
last  day  began.  It  is  needless  to  dwell  further  on  the 
minutiae  of  evidence.  We  are  in  that  day;  the  judgment 
is  set;  the  books  are  opened;  the  process  is  going  for- 
ward; the  decisions  of  that  day  are  being  immutably 
settled. 

II.  We  inquire  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  judgment. 
Krisis  is  the  word.  It  means  separation.  To  judge  is  to 
separate.  Bear  that  fact  in  mind.  As  a  mental  act, 
judgment  separates  or  discriminates  the  true  from  the 
false  in  testimony,  the  like  from  the  unlike  in  science  or 
philosophy,  the  good  from  the  evil  in  morals.  In  the  court 
of  civil  justice,  judgment  separates  the  wrong  from  the 
right,  and  awards  satisfaction  to  the  wronged.  In  the 
criminal  court,  it  separates  the  guilty  from  the  innocent, 
and  its  sentence,  carried  into  execution,  literally  separates 
the  criminal  from  the  law-abiding,  and  shuts  up  the  former 
with  their  own  kind.  Separation  is  the  undertone  of 
meaning  that  runs  through  every  application  of  the  word. 
Jesus  says:  "In  the  last  day,  the  word  that  I  speak  shall 
judge  him  that  receiveth  it  not  and  rejecteth  me."  My 
word  is  his  judge.  No  other  is  needed.  It  tries  him,  con- 
victs him,  sentences  him,  and  carries  the  sentence  into 
execution  by  separating  him  from  the  good.  How  ?  By 


THE  JUDGMENT  DAY.  187 

the  natural  and  inevitable  effect  of  rejected  truth  upon 
the  mind  and  heart.  No  external  force  is  needed,  no  ma- 
chinery of  justice,  no  formality  of  trial,  no  sheriff  or  jailer 
or  prison  walls.  Just  speak  the  truth,  and  let  it  have  its 
way  with  the  soul,  and  the  judgment  is  accomplished. 

Let  me  illustrate  this  by  an  incident.  Some  years  ago, 
as  I  was  passing  an  Indian  encampment  in  company  with 
a  missionary  who  had  become  well  acquainted  with  their 
habits  and  social  life,  I  asked  him,  "  Do  you  find  the  same 
variety  of  character  or  the  wide  difference  in  moral  grade 
among  those  Indians  that  you  meet  in  civilized  society  ? " 
"  By  no  means,"  was  his  reply.  "  There  are  individual  dif- 
ferences of  talent  and  temper.  For  example,.  Deer-foot 
there  has  a  little  more  energy  than  Sleepy-eye,  and  Watch- 
dog is  a  little  less  savage  and  cruel  than  Springing-cat  ; 
but,  take  them  together,  they  are  all  just  about  alike. 
They  hunt  the  same  game,  practice  the  same  rude  arts, 
have  the  same  amusements,  eat  the  same  food,  the  women 
all  bear  the  same  drudgery,  and  the  men  all  indulge  in 
the  same  vices."  "  Then  there  is  no  depraved  class  among 
them,  expelled  from  respectable  society  by  their  excep- 
tional badness  ? "  "  None."  "  No  outcasts  ? "  "  None." 
"  No  criminals  that  they  fetter  or  shut  in  prison  for  the 
public  safety  ? "  "  No ;  if  one  is  sharp  and  energetic  enough 
to  commit  daring  crimes,  they  are  about  as  apt  to  praise 
and  promote  and  try  to  imitate  as  they  are  to  punish  him." 
"  Well,  if  you  preach  the  Gospel  to  these  savages,  some 
will  receive,  some  reject.  The  believers  will  grow  better; 


188  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  rejecters  will  remain  as  they  are  or  grow  worse. 
Will  not  this  create  the  moral  antagonism,  differences, 
grades,  or  variety  of  character  that  are  now  absent?" 
"  Unquestionably.  We  cannot  hope  that  all  will  receive 
the  Gospel ;'  if  some  would  not,  we  should  have  no  motive 
to  preach  to  them."  "And  thus  from  the  very  word  of 
Christ  which  you  speak  to  them,  diverse  moral  sympathies 
spring  into  being;  mutual  repulsions  grow  stronger  year 
by  year,  ever  widening  out  the  moral  distance  that  sepa- 
rates the  unlike  classes."  "  Yes,  in  some  sense,"  half-pro- 
testingly  assented  my  friend;  "but  the  true  convert  could 
not  refuse  to  associate  with  his  old  companions.  The 
Gospel  does  not  extirpate  natural  affection,  and  the  love 
of  God  must  teach  him  to  go  down  to  the  degraded,  as 
Jesus  mingled  with  publicans  and  sinners,  that  he  may 
win  them  and  raise  them  up."  "Yes,  no  doubt,  while 
there  is  hope,"  I  replied ;  "  yet  he  will  only  be  '  among 
them,  not  of  them/  And  must  not  their  growing  antipa- 
thies of  moral  taste,  as  opposite  as  light  and  darkness,  push- 
ing them  ever  farther  apart,  at  last  make  it  apparent  that 
they  can  never  dwell  together  as  congenial  spirits  ? " 
"Ay,  indeed  ! "  was  the  reply;  "  and  that  looks  like  noth- 
ing less  than  the  bridgeless  gulf  of  separation."  Well> 
then,  I  asked  my  friend,  and  I  ask  you  who  hear  me  to- 
day, what  is  that  but  judgment  ~by  the  word  which  Jesus 
has  spoken  ?  What  is  it  but  a  single  example  of  a  world- 
wide fact — the  "natural  selection"  of  religion,  sorting  the 
good  from  the  bad  by  a  law  as  uniform  and  inevitable  as 


THE  JUDGMENT  DAY.  189 

that  which  separates  oil  from  water.  The  response  of  the 
moral  nerve  to  the  touch  of  the  truth  decides  the  matter. 
The  antipathies  of  taste,  of  sentiment,  of  every  principle 
of  association,  which  the  truth  creates  in  those  who  re- 
ceive it,  just  as  certainly  send  them  apart  from  those  who 
reject,  as  lambs  fly  from  wolves  or  doves  from  hawks. 
Their  natures  become  opposites.  They  refuse  to  be  to- 
gether. Force  them  by  external  constraint  to  remain  in 
each  other's  presence,  and  they  are  not  together;  they 
are  at  moral  antipodes.  They  are  apart  by  the  whole 
diameter  of  the  moral  world.  No  third  power  thrusts 
any  bars  of  separation  between  them;  the  truth  simply 
does  its  work  in  the  heart  and  conscience  of  some,  is  for- 
bidden to  do  it  in  others,  and  the  judgment  is  accom- 
plished. Moral  affinities  are  decided.  The  congenial  cling 
together ;  the  uncongenial  turn  away  from  each  other. 

1 '  Nor  less  the  eternal  poles 
Of  tendency  distribute  souls. 
These  need  no  vows  to  bind 
Whom  not  each  other  seek,  but  find. 
They  give  and  take  no  pledge  or  oath — 
Nature  is  the  bond  of  both." 

And  so  the  Word  of  Jesus  proves  the  magnet  of  character, 
separating  the  sand  from  the  gold.  It  reveals  the  evil  in 
men  as  the  touch  of  Ithuriel's  spear,  according  to  Milton, 
detected  the  subtle  and  masked  arch-deceiver,  "  squat  like 
a  toad,"  at  the  ear  of  our  first  mother.  The  sense  of  sin 
starts  up  in  shame,  and  shrinks  away  from  the  presence 
and  the.  sight  of  the  innocent.  Every  one  may  hear,  if 


190  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

he  will  "  lay  his  ear  intently  down  over  the  beating  of  his 
own  heart,"  the  clear  voice  of  the  Infinite  Judge  pro- 
nouncing upon  every  moral  act  His  approval  or  condem- 
nation. No  form  or  pageant  is  needed.  The  trial  and 
the  verdict  and  the  execution  all  go  on  in  the  silence  of 
the  secret  soul.  Each  judges  himself. 

III.  Some  suggestions  that  spring  naturally  from  this 
view: 

1.  The  judgment  which  fixes  our  final  state  is  not  the 
decision  of  another  or  sentence  passed  upon  us,  but  a  self- 
determined  process  within  ourselves.  It  begins  when  the 
first  claim  of  truth  awakens  the  conscience.  It  advances 
with  every  newly  awakened  feeling  of  obligation.  Never 
is  the  voice  within  heard  bidding  us,  "  Go,  work  in  the 
vineyard  of  duty;"  or,  Withhold  thy  hand  and  thy 
thought  from  evil;"  but  our  response  is  separating  us 
from  the  evil  or  from  the  good,  moving  us  toward  the 
company  at  the  right  or  toward  the  company  at  the  left 
of  the  great  white  Throne.  "  Come,"  or  "  Depart,"  is  the 
immediate  echo  to  our  answer.  No  matter  how  small  the 
duty — to  give  the  cup  of  cold  water,  to  speak  a  kindly 
word  or  suppress  a  bitter  one,  to  check  the  momentary 
craving  for  some  hurtful  dainty,  or  strangle  the  indul- 
gence that  is  beginning  to  weave  the  snare  of  enslaving 
habit,  to  confess  a  fault,  or  pluck  the  vanity  that  thinks 
too  much  of  self  to  care  much  for  others — life  is  made  up 
of  small  occasions,  not  of  grand  crises,  and  the  decision 
upon  each  goes  into  the  bias  of  moral  sensibility,  tones 


THE  JUDGMENT  DAY.  191 

the  conscience,  and  does  just  so  much  to  create  those  spir- 
itual attractions  and  repulsions  that  place  the  soul  in  its 
moral  companionship  as  certainly  as  gravitation  fixes  the 
place  of  the  planet  among  the  stars.  Oh,  careless  mor- 
tal, awake  to  the  tremendous  significance  of  the  present 
moment!  You  are  in  the  presence  of  the  Almighty 
Judge !  You  are  shaping  His  decision  by  your  own  upon 
the  duty  of  the  moment.  Think  not  of  a  postponed  judg- 
ment, lying  uncounted  ages  in  the  future,  so  far  away 
that  it  cannot  seem  a  reality  which  much  concerns  you 
now.  You  are  now  on  trial ;  the  verdict  on  your  life  is 
now  being  made  up.  Every  moral  act  swells  the  testi- 
mony for  or  against  you.  The  momentous  issue  advances 
apace  toward  irrevocable  settlement.  The  companion- 
ship of  eternity  is  gathering  around  you  in  the  choices  of 
the  hour. 

I  am  aware  that  the  textual  critic  will  remind  me  of 
the  sacred  Scripture,  "  It  is  appointed  unto  men  once  to 
die,  and  after  this  the  judgment,"  and  that  Jesus  himself 
declares  it  shall  be  more  tolerable  for  Sodom  and  Gomor- 
rah in  the  day  of  judgment  than  for  certain  cities  of  his 
own  time — plainly  implying  that  the  judgment  lies  be- 
yond this  life.  Enough  to  reply  that  the  day  is  passing, 
but  not  closed;  the  process  is  going  forward,  but  not 
ended.  Not  till  human  history  ends,  and  the  life  beyond 
the  grave  shall  have  received  its  last  accession  from  earth, 
can  the  account  with  all  be  closed  and  the  result  declared. 
This  fact  sufficiently  accounts  for  the  language  referred 


192  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

to.  But  for  you  and  me,  all  the  same,  must  the  decision 
soon  be  settled — not  by  death,  but  by  life ;  not  at  a  point 
that  may  be  determined  by  accident,  but  by  choices  of 
our  own  free  will ;  not  at  an  appointed  date  of  time,  but 
by  a  self-confirmed  state  of  character. 

2.  We  ought  to  forecast  our  own  future  in  the  ruling 
tendencies  we  can  observe  in  ourselves  in  the  present. 
Watch  the  forces  at  work  within  you — conscience  in  con- 
tact with  the  claims  of  truth,  desire  in  contact  with  the 
world,  the  habitual  bent  of  thought,  the  things  that  attract 
you  most,  the  ends  for  which  you  are  living,  your  ruling 
passion.  Take  the  bearing  of  these  forces.  Compute  care- 
fully the  value  of  the  results  to  which  they  have  brought 
you  and  are  bringing  you.  Then,  from  the  range  of 
direction  thus  gained,  throw  your  eye  forward,  and  you 
can  foresee  the  end.  It  will  be  the  ripened  present.  Re- 
flect, and  you  can  say  now  whether  you  are  willing  to 
arrive  at  such  a  goal,  or  whether  it  would  be  wiser  to 
change  your  course,  and  put  your  destiny  in  the  hands  of 
quite  other  forces.  There  is  no  contingency,  no  uncer- 
tainty, save  in  our  refusal  to  foresee.  God  will  not  judge 
us  by  any  ex  post  facto  law,  nor  save  us  by  any  ex  post 
facto  salvation.  Not  more  certainly  can  the  astronomer, 
whose  eye  at  the  lens  of  his  telescope  follows  the  planet 
through  a  short  arc  of  its  orbit  and  measures  its  curve, 
tell  the  whole  sweep  of  its  revolution,  than  we  can  tell 
from  our  course  in  the  present,  if  we  will  be  at  the  pains 
to  calculate,  to  what  point  the  whole  orbit  of  life  will 


THE  JUDGMENT  DAY.  193 

bring  us.  We  often  wonder  where  we  shall  be  in  the 
world  to  come.  Where  are  we  now — not  in  space,  but 
in  purpose  and  ruling  tendency,  our  moral  "  where  ? " 
Where  are  the  days  and  the  years,'  as  they  go  by,  bear- 
ing us?  Answer  that  question,  and  unless  some  voluntary 
change  bends  our  steps  in  some  new  direction,  leading 
toward  some  new  moral  goal,  our  curious  or  anxious 
uncertainty  may  be  at  rest.  We  shall  only  be  more  of 
what  we  are. 

3.  This  view  disposes  at  once  of  the  peculiar  question 
which  has  agitated  all  the  Christian  centuries,  as  to  what 
is  to  be  done  with  the  souls  of  the  dead  generations 
while  awaiting  the  judgment  of  the  last  day.  An  "  inter- 
mediate state  "  has  been  invented  for  their  accommoda- 
tion. They  are  shut  up  in  Hades,  say  some — the  good  in 
Paradise  or  the  pleasant  upper  story,  the  bad  in  Gehenna 
or  the  hot  cellar,  the  final  Heaven  and  Hell  to  be  respect- 
ively higher  and  lower.  Others  insist  on  a  suspension  of 
conscious  existence,  a  sleep  of  ages,  a  long  spiritual  syn- 
cope, from  which  the  resurrection  trumpet  will  startle  the 
sleeping  souls  to  life  again — a  loss  of  time  for  which  we 
can  hardly  imagine  any  use.  Such  curious  conceits 
would  never  have  occurred  to  any  mind,  if  the  words  of 
Christ  had  received  their  natural  interpretation.  The 
Swedish  seer,  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  teaches  that  there 
will  be  great  krises,  judgments,  or  periods  of  separation  in 
the  world  to  come,  at  which  myriads  and  masses  of  souls, 
grown  ripe  for  such  a  result  by  their  demonstrated  and 


194  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

confirmed  spiritual  affinities,  will  be  rapidly  sifted  and 
assigned  to  their  final  abodes  and  associations.  For  aught 
we  can  tell,  this  may  be  true.  It  would  be  analogous  to 
many  great  crises  in  human  history.  But  this  would 
involve  no  long  delay  or  suspense  of  all  till  earth  had 
closed  its  history.  We  should  still  infer  that  as  soon  as 
each  soul  has  reached  its  ripe  state  of  character  it  is  gath- 
ered to  its  own. 

4.  A  most  cheering  hope  springs  up  from  the  truth  thus 
unfolded  to  view.  No  uncertainty  clouds  its  light.  Faith 
is  conscious  of  holding  in  her  hand  the  power  to  command 
the  most  desired  award  of  the  last  day.  This  growing 
".  life  of  God  in  the  soul,"  coming  more  and  more  to  be 
"partaker  of  the  divine  nature,"  cannot  fall  short  of  that 
holy  companionship  and  fellowship  which  is  its  dearest 
desire.  In  the  old  view  there  was  a  weird  atmosphere  of 
unreality  ever  hanging  over  the  picture  of  the  final  judg- 
ment, that  either  raised  a  secret  suspicion  that  such  an 
artificial  scenic  display  could  hardly  be  God's  method  of 
closing  up  accounts  with  this  earth,  or  else  produced  the 
feeling  that,  as  the  result  depended  on  the  arbitrary  will 
of  another,  the  proverbial  uncertainty  attending  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice  in  human  courts,  with  their  long, 
formal  trials,  would  reach  forward  to  this  final  assize,  and 
the  soul  must  simply  take  its  chances  with  others.  But 
here  is  placed  under  our  own  eyes  the  working  of  the 
forces  that  compel  us  to  see  that  there  is  no  chance  in 
the  case.  Cause  and  effect  do  not  wait  on  chance.  Their 


THE  JUDGMENT  DAY.  195 

immutable  order  speaks  to  us  in  the  voice  of  certainty. 
And  here  we  not  only  see,  but  control — yea,  are — the  causes 
of  the  result.  In  the  causes  we  can  foresee  the  final  end. 
There  is  no  day  of  uncertain  date,  no  dilatory  formalities 
of  trial,  no  contingency  of  the  decision.  We  know  what 
comes  and  must  come  from  the  motives  under  which  we 
act  and  the  influences  to  which  we  yield.  Examples  are 
ever  before  us.  Conscience  heeded  in  every  act  makes 
the  honest  man  ;  conscience  often  violated  shows  the 
confirmed  knave.  Appetite  well  regulated  brings  tho 
blessings  of  temperance  and  self-control;  appetite  over 
indulged  habitually  never  fails  to  reap  its  harvest  of  fever 
ing  congestions,  shattered  health,  and  will  enslaved  ix/ 
animal  cravings.  Avarice,  ruling  the  life  for  long  years, 
withers  the  generous  sympathies  and  dries  up  the  fount 
ains  of  noble  feeling  and  action.  Benevolence,  ever  over- 
flowing with  deeds  of  kindness,  enlarges  its  own  heart, 
and  blesses  itself  above  the  objects  it  blesses  most.  We 
know  all  this.  It  is  the  observed  order  of  nature  as  seen 
in  human  experience.  There  is  no  uncertainty,  no  con- 
tingency. The  reaping  is  as  the  sowing.  We  choose  the 
harvest  when  we  choose  the  seed. 

And  oh,  if  there  be  one  attraction  more  fitted  than 
another  to  draw  the  soul  onward  in  holy  endeavor,  it 
must  be  the  sure  hope  of  mingling  at  last  and  forever  in 
the  communion  which  at  once  fills  and  enlarges  every 
pure  affection  and  divine  aspiration.  To  be  away  from 
the  misunderstandings,  irritations,  hostilities  of  uncon- 
genial aims  and  tempers;  to  let  the  heart  go  out  in  all 


196  A  SEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  largeness  and  joy  of  its  love,  with  no  fear  of  betrayal, 
no  chill  of  distrust — in  our  better  moments  that  rises  as 
the  dearest  ideal  of  the  "Saint's  Rest."  It  is  a  privilege 
here  to  labor  for  the  needy,  to  instruct  the  ignorant, 
to  stretch  out  the  helping  hand  to  the  fallen,  no  doubt; 
but  every  one  will  feel  that  Heaven  would  have 
little  charm  to  draw  us  towards  itself  if  it  promised 
only  the  continued  commingling  of  the  evil  with  the  good, 
and  all  that  would  be  incident  to  that  condition.  If  that 
had  been  the  prospect,  never  would  homesick  souls,  strug- 
gling against  evil  in  the  world  and  in  themselves,  have 
breathed  forth  their  longings  through  so  many  ages  in 
the  sweet,  plaintive  old  hymn  : 

0  mother  dear,  Jerusalem, 

When  shall  I  come  to  thee  ? 
When  shall  my  sorrows  have  an  end  ? 

Thy  joys,  when  shall  I  see  ? 
O  happy  harbor  of  God's  saints  ! 

O  sweet  and  pleasant  soil ! 
In  thee  no  sorrows  can  be  found, 

No  grief,  no  care,  no  toil ! 

My  dear  Redeemer  is  above, 

Him  will  I  go  to  see; 
And  all  my  f fiends  in  Christ  below 

Shall  soon  come  after  me. 

Not  ceasing  from  effort,  but  fullness  of  fellowship,  is  the 
joy  for  which  the  yearning  spirit  pants.  And  the  word 
which  Christ  has  spoken  plainly  says  to  us  through  the 
irreversible  law  of  experience:  Be  worthy,  and  you  will 
have  your  part  with  the  worthy ;  be  loving,  and  love  will 
be  your  heart's  answer;  be  Christ-like,  and  you  shall 
dwell  forever  with  Christ. 


The  Real  Point  at   Issue  between 
Sacred  and  Secular  Science. 

Read  before  the  Berkeley  Club,  of  Oakland,  Cal.,  Aug.  17,  1876. 

The  religious  sentiment  in  man  is  a  fact — a  fact  of 
universal  experience.  Its  invariable  manifestation  points 
to  some  original  attribute  or  inherent  tendency  of  the 
human  mind.  Secular  science  has  also  its  realm  of  fact 
and  law,  which  observation  and  reflection  compel  us  to 
recognize.  Between  this  sentiment,  as  such,  and  the  facts 
of  this  science,  with  their  respective  laws  properly  under- 
stood, there  can  be  no  conflict.  Fact  in  nature  cannot 
disagree  with  fact  in  experience.  Indeed,  it  seems  absurd 
to  speak  of  any  antagonism  between  sentiment  and  sci- 
ence. The  one  is  the  action  of  sensibility ;  the  other,  of 
intellect.  The  two  have  no  factors,  or  qualities,  or  terms 
in  common,  through  which  a  collision  could  be  felt.  We 
had  as  well  speak  of  antagonism  between  a  passion  for 
music  and  the  properties  of  the  triangle,  as  of  conflict  be- 
tween the  sentiment  of  religion  and  any  form  of  purely 
scientific  thought. 

But  the  human  mind  must  inquire  into  the  basis  of  this 
sentiment,  frame  some  philosophy  of  its  nature,  define, 


198  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

more  or  less  clearly,  certain  beliefs  for  its  support,  and 
shape  some  intelligible  system  for  its  excitement  and  de- 
liberate culture.  This  is  the  work  of  intellect;  hence 
springs  up,  of  necessity,  a  science  of  religion,  having  its 
realm  of  facts,  real  or  assumed,  and  its  regulative  laws,  as 
much  as  the  science  of  physics.  On  this  scientific  side, 
religion  shapes  itself  into  terms  of  intellectual  conception 
and  expression  which  can  feel  the  touch  of  any  opposing 
elements  in  other  science. 

And  here  arises,  through  the  limitations  of  human 
knowledge  and  mistaken  reasoning,  the  liability  to  col- 
lision between  an  erroneous  religious  science  and  a  true 
secular  science  on  the  one  hand,  or  between  an  erroneous 
secular  science  and  a  true  religious  science  on  the  other ; 
or,  finally,  between  the  two  when  both  are  in  error.  Of 
course,  truth  can  never  conflict  with  truth,  real  science 
with  other  real  science.  But  one  could  easily  foresee,  at 
this  point,  that  the  intellectual  armatures  of  the  two  sciences 
would  soon  be  heard  fiercely  clashing  with  each  other.  If 
sacred  science  assumes  as  fact,  either  in  the  sphere  of 
spiritual  being,  history,  or  phenomena,  anything  which 
the  advancing  researches  of  secular  science  shall  clearly 
negative,  the  latter  must  ere  long  serve  a  writ  of  error 
against  her  decisions,  and  insist  that  the  case  shall  go  to 
the  supreme  court  of  reason.  Religion  is  substituting 
superstition  for  faith.  She  is  using  fiction  instead  of 
truth,  or,  at  least,  mingling  the  two,  in  the  culture  of  her 
peculiar  sentiment.  Her  intellectual  work  is  not  science, 


THE    EEAL    ISSUE.  199 

but  dogmatism;  putting  opinion,  confidently  asserted,  in 
the  place  of  established  facts  and  principles.  Happy  will 
it  be  for  her  if  she  get  wisdom  to  accept  the  aid  of  secular 
science  in  correcting  her  mistakes.  If  she  stubbornly  in- 
sist that  her  false  assumptions  are  vital  to  true  religious 
faith  and  worship,  she  will  pay  the  penalty  in  seeing  the 
best  minds  deserting  her  standard,  leaving  in  her  ranks 
only  the  ignorant  and  the  unthinking. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  secular  science  leaves  the  field  of 
demonstration,  and  assumes  as  established  unproved  data 
antagonistic  to  the  fundamental  facts  of  religion,  it  makes 
a  mistake  of  the  same  nature  as  the  former,  and  perhaps 
of  a  more  mischievous  tendency.  It  is  false  to  its  own 
principles  and  methods.  It  puts  hypothesis  in  the  place  of 
demonstration.  It  calls  assumptions  science.  It  uses  the 
intellect,  not  to  cultivate,  but  to  crush  some  of  the  dear- 
est sentiments  and  hopes  of  human  hearts.  It  is  matter 
of  grave  doubt  with  many  candid  thinkers,  whether  it 
does  not  strike  at  the  very  life  of  the  moral  virtues. 

The  collision  thus  made  possible  has  become  actual — I 
need  not  say  how  or  where.  You  are  all  aware  that  the 
battle  thus  far  has  raged  mainly  around  questions  re- 
specting the  time  and  manner  of  creation,  the  assertion 
of  subsequent  miraculous  interventions  by  the  Creator, 
and  the  degree  rather  than  the  reality  of  divine  inspira- 
tion. It  must  be  confessed  that  many  assumptions  which 
religion  once  thought  it  necessary  to  make  on  all  these 
questions  have  been  exploded  by  the  progress  of  scientific 


200  A  KEASONABLE  CHEISTIANITY. 

knowledge.  But  few  of  us  now  believe  that  the  world 
was  begun  and  finished  within  six  times  twenty-four 
hours,  or  that  woman  was  manipulated  into  the  creature 
she  is  out  of  a  rib  literally  cut  from  the  side  of  a  man,  or 
that  the  sun  and  moon  stopped  their  revolutions  at  the 
word  of  a  great  captain,  or  that  the  prophet  found  marine 
hotel  accommodations  for  three  days  and  nights  in  the 
stomach  of  a  fish.  We  discover  truth  no  less  clear  and 
divine,  and  far  less  embarrassed  by  suggestions  of  doubt, 
in  reading  such  marvelous  stories  as  legend  or  poetry 
than  in  reading  them  as  history. 

But  the  conflicts  over  these  questions  seem  to  me  to  be 
mere  skirmishes  on  the  frontiers.  They  touch  no  vital 
matter.  Whether  victory  or  defeat  settles  on  the  one  side 
or  the  other,  nothing  fundamental  to  the  subject  is  deter- 
mined. It  is  easy  to  see  that  religion  can  accept  any  cor- 
rection of  her  mistakes  which  any  possible  discoveries  of 
science  in  this  direction  may  make.  The  war  is  not 
worth  the  powder.  But  secular  science  is  now  showing 
some  disposition  to  carry  the  fight  into  the  citadel.  "  In 
some  of  its  leaders  it  seems  inclined  to  make  assumptions 
which  strike  at  the  fundamental  facts  of  all  religion; 
which,  indeed,  if  true,  would  call  upon  us  to  eliminate  the 
religious  sentiment  from  the  human  mind,  because  there 
would  be  no  fact  in  the  universe  that  could  stand  as  a 
rational  support  of  its  existence,  much  less  justify  its  de- 
liberate culture. 

Professor  Ernst   Haeckel,   of  Jena,  Germany,   in  his 


THE    REAL    ISSUE.  201 

"  History  of  Creation,"  after  .setting  in  sharp  contrast  the 
view  of  the  universe  which  regards  the  order  of  nature  as 
the  product  of  intelligent  design,  with  that  which  looks 
upon  it  as  the  outcome  of  mechanical  forces  inherent  in 
matter,  holds  this  language  :  "  We  must  decidedly  adopt 
that  view  of  the  universe  which  is  called  the  mechanical 
or  causal.  It  may  also  be  called  the  monistic  or  single 
principle  theory,  as  opposed  to  the  two-fold  principle  or 
dualistic  theory,  which  is  necessarily  implied  in  the 
teleological  conception  of  the  universe."  [Vol.  I,  p.  20.] 
Again  :  "  In  opposition  to  the  dualistic  or  teleological  con- 
ception of  nature,  our  theory  considers  organic,  as  well  as 
inorganic  bodies  to  be  the  necessary  products  of  natural 
forces.  It  does  not  see  in  every  individual  species  of  ani- 
mal and  plant  the  embodied  thought  of  a  personal  Creator, 
but  the  expression  for  the  time  being  of  a  mechanical 
process  of  development  of  matter,  the  expression  of  a 
necessarily  active  cause — that  is,  of  a  mechanical  cause 
(causa  efficiens}"  [Vol.  I,  p.  34.]  And  again,  on  page 
thirty-five :  "  Scientific  materialism  positively  rejects 
every  belief  in  the  miraculous,  and  every  conception,  in 
whatever  form  it  appears,  of  supernatural  processes. 
Accordingly,  nowhere  in  the  whole  domain  of  human 
knowledge  does  it  recognize  real  metaphysics,  but  through- 
out only  physics."  This  is  from  a  leader  of  scientific 
thought  who  counts  a  numerous  following.  The  surpass- 
ing ability  and  real  scientific  value  of  his  work  will  go 
far  in  commending  his  unscientific  assumptions  and 
speculations. 


202  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

Professor  Tyndall  is  a  still  more  popular  teacher  in  the 
English-speaking  world.  With  less  baldness  of  statement, 
but  with  more  insinuating  subtlety,  in  his  famous  Belfast 
address  of  two  years  ago,*  he  seems  to  commit  himself 
freely  to  the  same  position.  I  refer  to  him  here,  not  for 
the  purpose  of  adding  another  to  the  many  answers  that 
have  been  attempted,  but  because  he  furnishes  the  best 
introduction  to  the  thought  I  desire  to  present.  Allow 
me  to  quote,  in  connection  with  the  sentence  which  has 
provoked  most  criticism,  the  foregoing  paragraph,  by 
which  he  prepared  the  way  for  his  grand  climax.  He  is 
speaking  of  "  the  origination "  of  life.  He  says  :  "  We 
break  a  magnet,  and  find  two  poles  in  each  of  its  frag- 
ments. We  continue  the  process  of  breaking,  but  however 
small  the  parts,  each  carries  with  it,  though  enfeebled,  the 
polarity  of  the  whole.  And,  when  we  can  break  no 
longer,  we  prolong  the  intellectual  vision  to  the  polar 
molecules.  Are  we  not  urged  to  do  something  similar  in 
the  case  of  life?  Is  there  not  a  temptation  to  close  to 
some  extent  with  Lucretius,  when  he  affirms  that  '  Nature 
is  seen  to  do  all  things  spontaneously  of  herself,  without 
the  meddling  of  the  gods  ; '  or  with  Bruno,  when  he  de- 
clares that  '  Matter  is  not  that  mere  empty  capacity  which 
philosophers  have  pictured  her  to  be,  but  the  universal 
mother,  who  brings  forth  all  things  as  the  fruit  of  her  own 
womb? '  The  questions  here  raised  are  inevitable.  They 
are  approaching  us  with  accelerated  speed;  and  it  is  not  a 
*  See  heading  for  date  at  which  this  article  was  read. 


THE    REAL    ISSUE.  203 

matter  of  indifference  whether  they  are  introduced  with 
reverence  or  irreverence."  Then  follows  the  climax  : 
"  Abandoning  all  disguise,,  the  confession  I  feel  bound  to 
make  before  you  is,  that  I  prolong  the  vision  backward 
across  the  boundary  of  the  experimental  evidence,  and 
discern  in  matter  *  *  *  the  promise  and  potency  of 
every  form  and  quality  of  life." 

Let  us  be  reminded  here  again  that  Professor  Tyndall 
is  speaking,  not  of  time  or  manner,  but  of  "  the  origina- 
tion of  life."  He  would  have  no  meddling  of  God  with 
this  ;  he  sees  it  springing  spontaneously  from  the  womb 
of  matter  as  universal  mother.  I  think  I  do  him  no  in- 
justice by  this  inference  ;  for  if  he  has  not  quite  formally 
indorsed  this  language,  quoted  from  two  famous  authors, 
as  interpreting  his  own,  taking  the  whole  connection,  it  Is 
difficult  to  see  how  he  could  have  intended  anything  else. 
The  question  at  issue  is  thus  taken  out  of  the  domain  of 
methods  or  order  of  procedure  in  creation,  and  centers 
upon  the  nature  of  the  force  that  creates  or  evolves.  Is  it 
Intelligence,  working  by  foresight,  aim,  purpose,  or  is  it 
some  blind,  unguided  energy,  pushing  forth  results,  un- 
conscious of  what  it  is  about  ?  This  is  the  real  issue;  the 
only  one,  as  it  seems  to  me,  worth  the  trouble  of  trying 
out.  If  this  creating  or  evolving  force  is  Intelligence, 
working  to  a  design,  after  the  known  laws  of  intelligence, 
then  religion  has  in  nature  all  the  basis  for  her  worship,  and 
the  culture  of  her  proper  sentiment,  that  she  can  ask.  If 
it  is  some  mole-like  push-principle  merely,  "  going  it  blind," 


204  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

then  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  excuse  an  intelligent  being 
can  have  for  giving  any  scope  to  the  religious  faculty  or 
feeling.  An  "absentee  God,",  outside  of  creation,  can 
never  command  the  reverence  of  the  human  mind. 

I  can  fully  accept  the  language  of  Professor  Tyndall,  if 
he  will  allow  me  to  put  my  meaning  into  his  words.  I 
too  discern  in  matter  the  promise  and  potency  of  every 
form  and  quality  of  life.  I  call  that  promise  and  potency 
GOD — Will,  Thought,  Intelligent  Design.  I  claim  that  he 
is  not  absent  from,  but  in  every  atom  of  these  evolving 
forces  and  phenomena — the  potency,  the  law,  the  prede- 
termining agent  of  the  result.  But  will  any  one  pretend 
that  this  was  what  Professor  Tyndall  meant  to  say  he 
discerned  in  matter?  If  so,  why  did  he  preface  his  asser- 
tion with  unctious  quotations  about  the  spontaneous 
origination  of  life,  dispensing  with  the  meddling  of  God  ? 

I  cordially  accept  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  although 
not  able  to  see  the  sufficiency  of  Mr.  Darwin's  account  of 
that  doctrine.  I  do  not  believe  it  possible  for  any  well- 
balanced  mind,  trained  in  the  rigid  methods  of  science,  to 
trace  the  links  of  the  growing  chain  of  animal  life,  link 
by  link,  from  lower  to  higher,  observing  what  is  common 
to  both,  and  the  slight  peculiarity  that  ranks  the  latter 
above  the  former  in  each  case,  without  corning  to  believe 
fully  in  some  genetic  connection  running  through  the 
whole  chain.  But  does  this  exclude  God,  Will,  Intelligence, 
and  Purpose  from  all  connection  with  this  evolving  order? 
Does  it  prove  that  He  can  not  be  both  fountain  and  stream 


THE    SEAL    ISSUE.  205 

in  these  ever  onward-flowing  forces?  Is  it  more  rational 
and  scientific  to  say  that  "  matter  is  the  universal  mother 
that  brings  forth  all  things  as  the  fruit  of  her  own  womb? " 
Is  there  no  Father  in  the  case  of  these  wonderful  births  of 
nature  ?  Is  Parthenogenesis,  with  nothing  higher  than 
virgin  atoms,  the  scientifically  demonstrated  origin  of  this 
earth  and  all  its  multiform  life?  As  the  scientist  looks 
beyond  the  boundary  of  the  experimental  evidence,  does 
he  really  discern  in  matter,  apart  from  God,  or  does  he 
only  guess,  the  potency  of  every  form  and  quality  of  life? 
If  the  latter,  he  turns  false  to  the  ruling  principle  of  his 
own  method,  which  demands  for  such  positively  asserted 
conclusions,  not  guesses  or  opinion,  but  demonstration. 
We  must  be  pardoned  for  not  seeing  the  validity  of  such 
conclusions. 

The  question  recurs  to  the  nature  of  the  force  at  work 
in  this  process  of  evolution.  Is  it  Intelligence,  or  is  it  the 
blind  push-principle  ? 

It  is  necessary  here,  in  order  to  reach  an  answer  in  any 
degree  satisfactory,  to  first  rid  the  mind  of  some,  not  only 
inadequate,  but  very  misleading  conceptions  of  God,  and 
of  his  mode  of  working  or  self -manifestation.  These  are 
nearly  universal  in  popular  thought,  and  by  no  means 
uncommon  among  the  educated.  Let  no  one  imagine 
that  the  assumption  that  a  personal  God  is  this  creative 
force  involves  the  idea  of  "broken  efforts"  or  separate  acts 
of  creation,  going  by  "fits  and  starts,"  in  the  origination 
of  new  forms  of  life.  It  involves  the  very  opposite  con- 


206  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

elusion.  If  God  creates,  we  must  suppose  it  is  as  much  a 
certainty,  or,  if  you  please,  necessity,  when  the  divine 
action  reaches  certain  conditions  of  evolving  life,  that  a 
new  and  higher  species  should  be  generated,  as  it  is  that 
any  seed,  in  the  most  favorable  conditions,  should  ger- 
minate. The  result  comes  forth  naturally  from  the  con- 
tinuous action  of  antecedent  forces — the  linked  connection 
of  cause  and  effect.  If  it  is  God  who  is  evolving  this 
creative  progress,  there  can  be  no  caprice.  The  infinite 
Intelligence  and  Wisdom,  in  any  given  case,  can  choose 
but  one  course — the  best ;  can  do  but  one  thing — the 
wisest.  The  idea  of  his  taking  either  of  several  courses 
is  ruled  out.  One,  among  all  the  possibilities  in  the  Cre- 
ator's view,  must  be  the  wisest  and  best.  Infinite  knowl- 
edge and  integrity  close  the  divine  action  to  that  course. 
With  the  Absolute  Mind  we  must  suppose  that  choice  and 
purpose  are  one;  that  omniscience  determines  what  the 
action  shall  be,  and  that  while  the  creative  force  moves 
in  infinite  freedom,  it  as  certainly  moves  in  one  fixed  line 
to  one  predetermined  result,  in  every  case,  as  if  impelled 
by  an  inexorable  fate  or  necessity. 

We  derive  the  same  conclusion  from  the  divine  immu- 
tability. God's  volition  can  not  be  jerky  and  spasmodic. 
It  can  not  originate  and  initiate  new  lines  of  force  and 
being  to-day  that  were  not  virtually  in  the  energies  at 
work  yesterday.  We  conceive  of  the  grand  forces  of  na- 
ture as  the  expression  of  that  volition.  The  unswerving 
uniformity  of  their  action,  which  we  name  law,  is  at  once 


THE    REAL    ISSUE.  207 

the  manifestation  and  proof  of  the  immutability  of  God. 
The  laws  of  nature  are  uniform  because  the  divine  will, 
whose  mode  of  action  they  are,  is  immutable.  We  claim 
no  intimacy  with  the  hidden  methods  of  the  Absolute. 
We  do  not  pretend  ability  to  trace  the  passage  of  the 
infinite  energy  forth  into  specific  act.  But  surely  it  can 
not  be  exceeding  the  warrant  of  reason  to  assume  that  the 
force,-;  which  go  forth  under  an  Infinite  purpose  ^vill  be 
steady  and  reliable  in  their  action. 

In  saying  this,  we  have  not  forgotten  Neibuhr's  pithy 
mot,  "  I  have  no  use  for  the  God  of  the  metaphysicians." 
Our  thought  is  in  danger  of  getting  lost  in  the  fathomless 
abyss.  We  do  not  want  a  Deity  who  is  frozen  or  par- 
alyzed by  his  own  infiniteness.  He  must  be  capable  of 
specific  acts,  and  of  all  the  infinite  variety  we  see  in  na- 
ture. Out  of  the  Infinite  oomes  forth  the  finite.  But 
what  we  would  have  especially  considered  here  is,  that  we 
are  under  the  necessity  of  shaping  our  ideas  of  what  is  in 
the  Infinite  from  what  we  see  in  the  finite,  including,  of 
course,  the  phenomena  of  our  own  consciousness,  as  well 
as  those  of  the  outer  world.  We  admit  the  inadequacy  of 
those  ideas;  the  finite  can  not  comprehend  the  Infinite; 
yet  we  can  not  refuse  a  place  to  the  conceptions  that  force 
themselves  upon  the  thinking  mind  as  necessarily  involved 
in  the  infinity  of  God.  Though  inadequate,  they  need  not 
therefore  be  erroneous.  Wo  shall  find  the  glory  of  the 
Creator,  as  manifested  in  his  works,  rising  in  sublimity, 
just  in  proportion  as  the  mind  rises  in  the  conception  of 


208  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

that  comprehensive  unity  which  binds  together  all  specific 
acts  and  facts,  in  both  their  origin  and  their  issue,  un- 
der immutable  law.  We  say  there  is  will  in  the  creative 
force,  yet  when  this  term  is  used  of  the  Infinite,  we  are 
not  to  think  of  his  action  as  a  series  of  volitions — separate, 
"  broken  "  acts — but  rather  as  a  force  acting  from  center 
to  circumference  of  the  universe,  and  flowing  on  forever 
and  ever  in  the  continuity  of  one  invariable  stream  of 
energy.  It  is  (me  volition.  There  is  not  only  unity  in 
the  power  that  acts,  but  unity  in  the  action.  All  specific 
effects  are  comprehended  in  this  unity. 

Perhaps  this  abstract  and  somewhat  difficult  conception 
may  become  clearer  by  reference  to  another  divine  attri- 
bute, more  familiar  to  the  contemplation  of  the  common 
mind — omniscience.  We  think  of  the  divine  Will  as  of 
the  divine  Intelligence.  It  would  be  an  absurdity  to  con- 
ceive of  the  knowledge  belonging  to  that  intelligence  as 
consisting  of  separate  facts  or  items  gathered  into  the 
infinite  Mind  at  different  times  and  by  separate  acts  of 
cognition.  Such  an  idea  would  imply  limits  of  knowledge. 
There  would  not  be  omniscience.  Such  a  being  would  not 
be  God.  Our  finite  thought  doubtless  falls  short  of  grasp- 
ing the  subject  in  its  fullness;  it  need  not  for  this  reason 
be  false  as  far  as  it  goes.  The  conclusions  which  it  finds 
itself  compelled  by  the  laws  of  its  own  action  to  rest  in, 
after  the  utmost  stretch  of  its  powers,  have  the  warrant 
of  the  inevitable  for  their  validity.  And  after  such  effort 
we  find  ourselves  compelled  to  think  of  all  particulars  in 


THE    REAL    ISSUE.  209 

the  divine  knowledge,  from  the  greatest  fact  to  the  least, 
from  the  world  or  the  universe  to  the  minutest  atom,  as 
included  in  the  one  act  of  intelligence  which  was,  and  is, 
and  is  to  be  forevermore ;  which  sees  all  and  each  at  once, 
and  from  eternity  to  eternity.  So  of  the  infinite  volition. 
We  may,  perhaps,  find  further  helpful  illustration  in 
our  ideas  of  time  and  space.  We  gain  our  conceptions  of 
these  from  limited  parts  of  them — from  finite  duration 
and  extension.  Yet  the  mind  is  compelled  by  the  laws  of 
its  own  action  to  think  of  both  as  infinite.  It  sees  that 
they  must  be  without  limits.  At  least  it  can  not  conceive 
the  contrary  as  true.  All  finite  parts  of  duration,  from 
the  winking  of  an  eye  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  a  kingdom, 
or  the  aeons  of  a  world's  evolution,  are  included  in  the 
unity  of  infinite  time.  All  limited  parts  of  space,  from 
that  filled  by  a  mote  or  "  ultimate  monad,"  to  that  filled 
by  a  world  or  measured  by  solar  systems,  are  included  in 
the  unity  of  unlimited  space.  The  infinite  must  finite 
itself,  or  come  within  metes  and  bounds,  before  its  mani- 
festation can  come  within  our  finite  comprehension.  It 
does  not  therefore  follow  that  there  is  no  infinite.  God  must 
finite  himself  in  particular  acts  in  order  to  manifest  himself 
to  finite  beings.  And  so  far  as  we  can  be  sure  that  we  are 
looking  upon  reality,  and  have  made  no  mistake  in  our 
apprehension  of  his  Word  or  his  works,  we  have  a  right  to 
the  conviction  that  we  see  him  as  he  is  through  these 
manifestations.  He  can  not  mask  himself  in  the  finite 
with  the  design  to  deceive.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have 


210  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

a  right  to  take  it  for  granted  that  our  interpretation  of 
either  his  Word  or  his  works  has  gone  wrong  whenever 
it  involves  a  conception  that  necessarily  contradicts  the 
immutability  or  infinity  of  his  being. 

When  we  claim,  therefore,  that  a  personal  God  is  the 
primal  force  in  the  creative  evolution  going  on  around 
us,  and  of  which  we  are  a  part,  we  do  not  imply  that  it 
must  go  forward  by  broken,  separate,  unconnected  acts  in 
the  origination  of  new  forms,  either  of  matter  or  of  life; 
we  rather  say  that  such  acts  in  the  case  are  impossible. 
Creation  goes  on  in  the  inexorable  uniformity  of  law  be- 
cause it  is  God  who  creates.  The  never  varying  uniformity 
of  nature's  grand  forces  is  the  direct  sublime  expression 
of  his  immutability — the  warrant  and  invitation  for  the 
highest  trust  of  his  intelligent  creatures. 

Once  having  reached  this  position,  it  becomes  readily 
apparent  that  the  real  question  at  issue  between  science 
and  religion  is,  not  whether  God  creates  by  evolution  and 
according  to  fixed  law,  or  in  some  other  manner — the  real 
issue  is  whether  it  is  God  who  creates ;  and  that  at  last 
inevitably  resolves  itself  into  the  question  ivheiher  there 
is  any  God  to  create.  It  is  only  when  science  takes  the 
negative  on  this  question,  either  openly  or  by  implication, 
that  religion  has  anything  to  dread  from  its  activity  and 
influence. 

Religion  claims,  and  must  claim,  that  there  is  a  God, 
and  that  he  creates.  Her  reverence,  her  worship,  her  very 
existence,  have  no  basis  save  in  the  evidence  for  that  fact. 


THE   KEAL    ISSUE.  211 

They  would  vanish  from  the  world  with  the  general  fail- 
ure of  that  conviction.  Heaven  would  be  vacant ;  earth 
would  be  a  sepulchre  ;  man  would  be  the  saddest  of  or- 
phans. 

Religion  must  insist,  also,  on  attributes  in  her  God  that 
answer  to  the  personality  of  man.  She  can  not  worship 
a  laio  of  nature.  She  can  not  hold  mutual  communion 
with  an  unconscious  force.  She  can  not  very  warmly 
love  "  a  stream  of  tendency."  If  she  attenuate  her  con- 
ception of  God  into  Matthew  Arnold's  "  Power  above  our- 
selves that  makes  for  righteousness,"  she  will  be  in  great 
danger  of  falling  asleep  in  her  devotions.  Such  phrases, 
designating  the  divine  Personality,  may  well  enough  be 
allowed  to  such  minds  as  Arnold's,  at  once  philosophic 
and  devoutly  earnest,  and  struggling  to  meet  the  difficul- 
ties of  other  perplexed  minds,  or  to  rid  the  popular  ideas 
concerning  God  of  crude  absurdities  ;  but  they  are  fatally 
abused  when  they  are  permitted  to  eliminate  from  our 
conception  and  sense  of  the  Divine  the  vivid  faith  and 
feeling  that  there  is  some  reality  in  the  ONE  whom  we 
trust  and  adore,  that  answers  perfectly  to  the  trust  and 
want  of  man,  thought  to  thought,  heart  to  heart,  love  to 
love. 

None  of  us  are  unaware  of  the  difficulties  that  gather 
around  the  conception  of  a  personal  God.  Doubtless  we 
have  all  shared,  more  or  less,  in  the  struggles  which  have 
led  some  of  the  acutest  minds  of  this  age,  both  among 
scientists  and  churchmen,  to  declare  God  the  Unknowable 


212  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

They  strain  the  eye  along  the  visible  lines  of  finite  mani- 
festation toward  the  Infinite,  and  say  it  seems  to  us  as 
though  there  must  be  some  reality  there — nay,  kindly 
permit  us  to  believe  there  is  ;  but  they  affirm,  neverthe- 
less, that  whatever  it  may  be,  it  is  forever  unapproachable 
to  our  thought ;  it  is  lost  to  us  in  the  limitless  depths. 
We  can,  in  reason,  neither  affirm  nor  deny  anything  posi- 
tive of  that  existence  in  which  we  believe — if  we  believe. 
Against  these  powerful  negations  I  must  insist  that 
religion  can  vindicate  her  claim  that  God  is  the  most 
clearly  and  intensely  knowable  fact  in  the  universe ;  that 
she  can  establish  this  claim  on  a  firm,  rational,  and  scien- 
tific basis.  Faith  in  the  existence  of  a  personal  God  is 
nearly  universal  among  the  races  of  mankind.  Save  in 
quite  explainable  exceptions,  it  rises  to  a  clearer  conviction 
as  culture  exalts  the  powers  of  the  mind.  There  must  be 
reasons  for  this  fact.  I  must  intist  that  those  reasons  can 
be  clearly  seen  and  intelligibly  stated.  The  candid  mind 
will  find  them  valid  for  this  faith.  A  personal  God  is 
knowable  through  the  phenomena  of  his  manifestation  in 
nature  and  in  the  soul  of  man,  just  as  certainly  as  any 
supersensible  fact,  gravitation,  for  example,  or  electricity, 
or  the  intelligent  mind  of  the  friend  with  whom  you  con- 
verse face  to  face,  is  knowable  through  the  phenomena 
of  its  manifestation.  Not  all  that  he  is  (for  that  would 
imply  infinite  capacity  in  us),  yet  that  he  is,  and  as  far 
as  his  manifestation  of  himself  to  us  goes,  in  the  essential 
attributes  of  his  being,  what  ke  is,  find  as  firm  a  basis  of 


THE    REAL    ISSUE.  213 

conviction  in  the  conscious  cognizance  of  the  human 
mind  as  any  fundamental  principle  of  physical  science. 
The  evidence  in  the  case  will  be  embarrassed,  if  at  all,  by 
its  simplicity.  As  with  all  primal  truths,  the  difficulty  is 
not  that  the  proof  is  too  far,  but  that  it  is  too  near.  Few 
of  us  ever  doubt  the  reality  of  existences,  both  material 
and  spiritual,  outside  of  ourselves.  If  another,  however, 
sees  fit  to  demand  of  you  the  proof,  you  may  find  it  far 
from  easy  to  demonstrate  that  which  it  is  impossible  for 
you  to  doubt.  Yet,  unless  you  have  encountered  one  of 
those  perversely  original  minds  that  doggedly  persist  in 
denying  "first  truths,"  you  may  shape  an  argument  that 
will  carry  conviction. 

I  shall  not  rely,  in  this  case,  upon  the  argument  from 
final  causes.  This  is  as  old  as  Socrates,  and  was  never 
more  tersely  or  clearly  stated  than  in  his  saying,  "  No 
work  of  skill  makes  itself."  *  In  the  hands  of  Paley,  it 
greatly  stimulated  inquiry,  and  seemed  to  give  a  powerful 
check  to  the  popular  religious  skepticism  of  a  century  ago. 
It  has  a  value  no  doubt.  I  would  not  throw  it  aside. 
But  standing  alone,  it  must  be  confessed  inadequate. 

Nor  shall  I  dwell  on  the  more  modern  argument,  urged 
by  some  vigorous  thinkers,  that  intuition  tells  us  that 
all  force  must  originate  in  and  emanate  from  Will.  Inert 
matter,  they  say,  can  not  start  new  lines  of  activity.  We 
are  compelled  to  think  of  all  forces  which  are  not  abso- 
lutely eternal  as  springing  from  some  voluntary  agent. 

*  Uberweg's  History  of  Philosophy,  Vol.  I,  p.  280. 


214  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

I  confess  that  my  own  mind  can  not  resist  this  conclusion. 
And  I  think  that  with  many  who  are  accustomed  to 
analyze  their  own  mental  activities  closely,  it  is  an  argu- 
ment that  will  carry  great  weight.*  But  in  seeking' a 

*  The  following  remarks  on  the  point  here  suggested  were  made  during 
the  discussion  which  followed  the  reading  of  this  essay,  by  Professor 
Joseph  Le  Conte,  of  the  University  of  California,  and  made  so  much 
impression  at  the  time  that  I  have  felt  that  I  would  be  doing  the 
public  a  service  in  procuring  them  for  print : 

"I  think  a  little  reflection  will  convince  that  the  idea  of  causation  or 
force  is  not  derived  from  without  by  observation,  but  wholly  from  within 
through  consciousness.  The  idea  of  external  forces  is  a  projection  of  con- 
scious internal  states  into  external  nature.  We  can  not  conceive  of 
effects  without  causative  force,  because  we  are  intensely  conscious  of 
being  ourselves,  through  our  wills,  an  active  cause  of  external  phenomena. 
If  we  were  merely  passive  intelligent  observers,  and  not  causers,  of 
changes  in  the  external  world,  these  phenomena  would  seem  to  us  only 
to  shift,  and  change,  and  succeed  each  other,  without  cause.  We  might 
note  the  order  and  determine  the  laws  of  sequence,  but  would  never 
imagine  any  causal  nexus  between  them.  In  the  minds  of  such  passive 
observers,  but  not  doers,  would  be  completely  realized  the  only  consis- 
tent material  philosophy — a  philosophy  in  which,  like  Comte's,  cause 
and  force  have  no  place.  But  the  certainty  of  a  causative  force  within — 
the  certainty  that  we,  through  our  wills,  and  by  the  conscious  exertion  of 
a  force,  do  determine  effects  in  the  external  world,  compels  the  mind 
to  attribute  all  effects  to  causative  forces  having  their  origin  in  will; 
and  therefore  when  the  effects  are  not  caused  by  ourselves,  we  necessa- 
rily attribute  them  to  forces  external  to  ourselves.  At  first — that  is,  in 
primitive  races  and  in  early  childhood — the  external  forces  take  the  form 
of  &  personal  will  like  our  own,  resident  in  each  object,  and  determining 
its  phenomena — Fetichism.  Afterwards,  we  gradually  learn  to  recog- 
nize the  wide  difference  between  the  conscious  internal  and  external 
forces.  Then  we  naturally  conceive  of  phenomena  as  caused  by  uncon- 
scious resident  forces,  under  the  control  of  several  (Polytheism),  or  of 
one  (Monotheism)  personal  will.  Thus  a  human  philosophy  of  nature 
necessarily  consists  of  two  antithetic  elements,  or  is  a  product  of  two 
factors;  the  one  derived  from  without,  the  other  contributed  from  within; 
the  one  objective,  the  other  subjective.  In  the  language  of  philosophy, 
these  two  are  phenomena  and  cause;  in  the  language  of  science,  matter 
and  force.  In  the  language  of  psychology,  they-are  matter  and  spirit ; 
in  the  language  of  religion,  nature  and  God.  The  pure  idealist  would 
empty  existence  of  the  former,  the  pure  materialist  of  the  latter ;  but  a 
rational  philosophy  requires  both.  Again,  uncultured  man  projects  his 
own  personal  conscious  will  into  every  object  of  nature;  the  modern 
materialist,  on  the  contrary,  injects  external  material  forces  into  this 
realm  of  consciousness ;  but  a  rational  philosophy  requires  the  complete 
distinction  of  these  two." 


THE    KEJLL    ISSUE.  215 

less  abstract  evidence,  I  have  traced  out  a  line  of  proof 
which  I  believe  to  be  not  less  conclusive,  and  one  that 
will  carry  conviction  to  a  greater  number  of  minds. 

Let  us  start  from  that  universal  intuition  which  lies  at 
the  basis  of  all  valid  reasoning;  namely,  that  cause  and 
effect  must  answer  reciprocally  to  each  other.  There 
must  be  something  in  every  cause  adequate  to  account 
for  every  effect  it  produces.  To  question  this  principle  is  to 
suspend  all  reasoning  until  it  shall  bo  put  beyond  doubt. 
In  the  unmeasured  Cause,  therefore,  from  which  (if  we 
may  not  yet  say  from  whom)  this  vast  series  of  effects, 
which  we  call  creation  or  the  universe,  springs,  must 
dwell  the  adequate  explanation  of  every  fact  and  phenom- 
enon included  in  the  whole.  Among  these  facts  and 
phenomena  we  are  conscious  of  thought,  affection,  will — 
in  short,  of  spiritual  personality.  These  are  the  highest 
effects  in  kind  of  all  that  come  within  our  cognizance. 
What  follows  ?  Must  there  not  be  in  the  original  Cause 
that  which  answers  to  these  grandest  effects — thought, 
affection,  will,  spiritual  personality  ?  The  human  mind 
can  not  rationally  resist  this  demonstration. 

It  may  be  objected  that  this  makes  our  faith  in  a  per- 
sonal God  rest  on  an  inference.  What  matters  ?  The 
inference  is  but  one  step  from  the  intuition  of  the  princi- 
ple which  binds  together  cause  and  effect.  The  step  is  as 
inevitable  as  any  corollary  from  a  theorem  in  geometry. 
Deny  its  validity,  and  all  reasoning  becomes  but  dream- 
ing, and  every  grandest  structure  it  builds,  but  "  the  base- 
less fabric  of  a  vision." 


216  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  short,  easy,  and  certain  step  of 
reasoning  from  a  universal  intuition,  accounts  for  the 
universal  belief  in  a  God  among  the  races  of  mankind. 
Few  may  be  able  to  analyze  their  own  mental  conscious^ 
ness  back  to  the  sources  of  this  conviction ;  but  when  it  is 
done,  here  will  be  found  its  germ.  And  however  the  evi- 
dence may  become  obscured  and  the  reason  confused  for  a 
time,  the  force  of  this  ever-present  principle  is  sure  to  draw 
the  human  mind  back  again  into  this  faith.  Theodore 
Parker  insisted  that  the  being  of  God  is  an  intuition  or 
direct  consciousness  of  the  soul.  Emerson  is  reported  to 
have  asked  him,  "  But  what  are  we  poor  mortals  to  do 
who  have  not  this  intuition  or  direct  consciousness  ? " — 
confessing  that  it  was  not  clear  to  him.  Multitudes  share 
in  the  doubt  of  Emerson,  but  a  'valid  demonstration  may 
carry  weight  when  the  consciousness  of  God  is  not  clear. 
If,  upon  reflection,  they  find  that  in  denying  a  personal 
Creator  they  would  be  virtually  contradicting  one  of 
their  most  familiar  intuitions,  they  may  accept  from  rea- 
son a  faith  which  they  were  not  prepared  to  accept  from 
any  conscious  experience  or  reading  of  interior  phenomena. 

If  it  be  objected,  again,  that  the  inference  from  our 
personal  attributes,  as  creatures,  is  good  only  for  the  per- 
sonality, and  not  for  the  infinitude,  of  the  Creator — not 
therefore  for  a  God — it  suffices  to  answer,  that,  a  personal 
Creator  granted,  the  human  mind  will  never  find  itself 
able  to  stop  short  of  clothing  him  with  the  attribute 
of  infinity.  The  leap  of  thought  from  the  finite  to  the 


THE    REAL    ISSUE.  217 

infinite  is  just  as  inevitable  in  the  sphere  of  mental,  moral, 
and  spiritual  existence  as  in  the  conception  of  time  and 
space. 

But  the  claim  is  urged  that  there  may  be  in  matter 
alone  some  hidden  quality  or  force  sufficient,  if  we  could 
but  trace  its  evolution,  to  account  for  all  the  higher  phe- 
nomena of  our  personal  being,  thought,  moral  sentiment, 
and  volition.  This  is  a  may-be ;  no  science  has  yet  been 
able  to  take  one  plausible  step  toward  transmuting  it  into 
a  must-be  or  is.  To  the  mass  of  mankind  it  is  a  supposi- 
tion that  seems  to  contradict  some  of  the  primal  facts  of 
their  consciousness.  But  let  us  admit,  for  the  moment, 
that  there  is  in  matter  some  inherent  power  which 
evolves  at  last  into  all  the  mental  and  spiritual  phenomena 
of  human  consciousness  ;  we  would  then  ask  how  far  this 
evolution  may  go  ?  Who  can  say  that  its  highest  product 
is  revealed  in  the  consciousness  with  which  we  are  familiar? 
If  this  power  be  inherent  in  matter,  and  if  matter  be  self- 
existent,  as  we  must  in  that  case  suppose,  it  has  already 
had  an  eternity  in  which  to  evolve  its  possibilities.  Count- 
less ages  ago  it  must  have  done  its  best.  Who  could  say 
that  it  had  not  developed  a  personal  consciousness  as  uni- 
versal as  matter  itself  ?  Who  could  say  that  this  won- 
derful restless  power  hi  matter  had  not  already  brought 
the  entire  physical  universe  into  an  exquisite  organism, 
at  its  summit  a  brain  and  sensorium,  at  its  center  a  heart, 
and  throughout  its  infinite  members,  nerves  of  action  and 
feeling,  vibrating  with  unimaginable  sensitiveness  to  the 


218  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

melody  or  the  discord  of  the  spheres — in  short,  an  infinite 
Personality, 

"Whose  body  nature  is,  and  Ood  the  soul." 

And  why  may  not  a  central  will  find  this  universal  body 
of  matter  at  least  as  pliant  to  its  purposes  as  the  human 
body  is  to  its  controlling  will  ?  So  the  physicist,  who 
finds  the  genesis  of  all  life  and  intelligence  in  material 
atoms,  can  not  be  sure,  after  all,  that  he  has  eliminated 
God  from  the  universe. 

This  is  but  an  argumentum  ad  hominem.  It  is  doubt- 
less fanciful  to  the  verge  of  trifling ;  yet  not  one  whit 
more  so,  it  seems  to  me,  than  the  philosophy  which  sees  in 
all  effects  nothing  higher  than  a  material  cause.  The  high- 
est intuitions  of  the  human  reason,  awakened  and  grow- 
ing clearer  by  all  the  facts  that  feed  the  growth  of  intel- 
lect, rest  in  a  God  whose  qualities  and  attributes  must 
answer  to  the  highest  conscious  facts  of  man's  own  per- 
sonality, and  thus  give  religion  the  firmest  ground  and 
justification  for  her  worship,  trust,  and  personal  love. 
Intellect  and  heart,  reason  and  faith,  science  and  religion, 
unite  their  testimony,  and  bending  the  knee  in  reverent 
worship  together,  blend  their  voices  in  sublime  ascription 
of  honor,  and  wisdom,  and  power,  and  might,  to  HIM— 
Creator  and  Father — who  "stretcheth  forth  the  heavens, 
and  layeth  the  foundation  of  the  earth,  and  formeth  the 
spirit  of  man  within  him." 

I  must  here  enter  my  protest  against  that  mistaken 
admission  (becoming  common,  I  am  sorry  to  see,  among 


THE    HEAL    ISSUE.  219 

theologians),  that  the  faculties  of  the  mind  that  occupy 
themselves  with  the  matters  of  secular  science  can  not 
grasp  the  truths  of  religion  ;  that  the  latter  belong  to*  a 
realm  of  moral  feeling  and  insight  too  lofty  for  the  tele- 
scope of  intellect  to  scan  ;  that  their  firmest  evidence  is 
given  only  in  an  experience  which  presupposes  faith. 
This  looks  very  much  like  pleading  the  baby  act.  It  has 
an  air  of  wishing  to  raise  a  prejudice  in  favor  of  our  own 
side  before  the  debate  begins. 

Let  us  not  lose  sight  of  the  distinction  between  senti- 
ment and  science.  Sentiment  feels  ;  science  sees  and  de- 
fines. The  feeling  of  sentiment  is  variable  ;  it  comes  and 
goes.  The  definition  of  science,  once  made  clear  to  the 
mental  eye,  is  steady  and  permanent.  Feeling  is  often 
the  phantom-born  illusion  of  our  own  imagination.  Sci- 
ence is  sure  of  the  reality  of  what  it  sees.  But  a  senti- 
ment is  sometimes  observed  to  be  universal,  or  nearly  so. 
This  fact  forbids  the  idea  of  its  being  mere  illusion.  It  is 
hardly  reason  to  suppose  that  men  of  all  races,  in  every 
variety  of  circumstances,  and  through  all  ages  of  time, 
are  deceived  by  the  same  phantom.  In  this  case,  feeling 
is  undoubtedly  reliable  evidence  of  some  substantial  reality 
as  its  cause.  And  what  we  claim  here  is  this — such  cause 
will  never  fail  to  come  forth  in  some  forms  of  manifesta- 
tion that  will  render  it  capable  of  more  or  less  distinct 
intellectual  apprehension  and  definition.  Real  causes  can 
be  discriminated  from  illusion.  Yet  feeling  alone  can 
never  make  this  discrimination,  nor  bring  its  cause  into 


220  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

the  domain  of  science.  It  must  summon  the  aid  of  intel- 
lect to  see  and  define  its  reality.  A  person  takes  into  his 
hands  the  opposite  poles  of  an  electric  battery ;  he  feels 
electricity.  If  every  one  who  does  the  same  has  the  same 
sensations,  he  becomes  sure  there  must  be  some  external 
reality  which  awakens  this  feeling.  Yet  feeling  tells  him 
little  or  nothing  of  the  nature  of  that  force.  Intellect 
must  take  it  in  hand,  construct  apparatus,  experiment  on 
the  conditions  under  which  it  appears,  mark  its  flash,  and 
measure  the  power  of  its  stroke,  and  write  out  the  laws 
of  its  action.  Then  he  has  not  a  mere  sensation,  but  a 
science  of  electricity.  One  who  has  never  felt  the  sensa- 
tion may,  by  diligent  observation  and  study,  become 
master  of  the  science.  He  may  come  to  know  much  more 
of  this  force  scientifically,  through  its  other  manifestations, 
than  the  one  whose  nerves  have  been  shaken  by  it  even 
in  intensest  degree. 

Now,  the  sentiment  of  religion  is  nearly  universal.  We 
have  a  right  to  conclude  from  this  fact  that  it  has  its 
source  in  some  substantial  objective  reality.  But  this 
sentiment  alone  can  not  give  us  a  science  of  religious 
truths.  In  this  case,  again,  I  claim  that  there  are  mani- 
festations of  all  realities  underlying  the  essential  doctrines 
of  religion,  aside  from  any  feeling  or  experience  coming 
only  through  faith,  which  place  them  within  the  grasp  of 
the  scientific  intellect.  I  must  insist  that  the  purely 
intellectual  basis  of  religion  is  as  reliable  as  that  of  any 
natural  science,  and  that  it  presents  to  the  scientific  eye 


THE    REAL    ISSUE.  221 

for  study  and  definition,  a  body  of  fact  and  law  equally 
sharp  and  clear  in  outline.  Shall .  we  turn  from  this  firm 
ground,  and  give  out  that  if  our  opponents  only  would 
follow  us  into  the  realm  of  feeling  or  religious  experience, 
and  consent  to  bring  other  faculties  into  play,  we  could 
overwhelm  them  with  evidence  ?  Shall  we  thus  abandon 
the  fair,  open  field  of  battle,  and  retire  behind  our  breast- 
works ?  This  would  be  a  half  confession  of  defeat.  It 
confounds  the  distinction  between  sentiment  and  science, 
and  surrounds  the  whole  discussion  with  nebulous  vague- 
ness. 

Undoubtedly,  the  experience  of  religion,  the  feeling  of 
her  grand  truths  that  comes  only  through  faith,  is  essen- 
tial to  the  realization  of  her  practical  benefits.  Electricity 
will  not  heal  our  infirmities  unless  we  have  faith  to  take 
it  feelingly  into  the  system.  But  this  is  no  reason  for 
telling  the  skeptic  that  there  is  no  sufficient  proof  for  the 
reality  of  religious  truths  until  he  has  the  experience  of 
faith.  One  need  not  doubt  that  there  is  such  a  force  as 
electricity  until  he  has  been  struck  by  lightning. 

If  we  are  to  have  a  sacred  science  or  theology,  it  must 
abide  by  the  methods  and  submit  to  the  tests  by  which 
all  other  science  stands  or  falls.  We  must  not  ask  for  it 
"poetic  license,"  or  the  indulgence  ever  accorded  to  senti- 
ment. On  the  field  of  reform,  and  in  all  practical  appli- 
cation of  religious  truths  for  the  improvement  of  character 
and  life,  we  may  use  the  weapons  of  sentiment.  On  the 
field  of  science,  we  must  keep  to  the  weapons  of  science. 


222  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

A  word  further  respecting  the  bearing  of  this  discus- 
sion on  the  questions  of  miracles  and  prayer.  It  seems 
to  me  that  a  far  clearer  light  would  rest  upon  these  ques- 
tions, if  we  should  come  to  them  with  some  proper  con- 
ception of  the  fact  that  the  action  of  the  infinite  Personality 
must  be  manifested  to  us  through  finite  agents  or  media. 
Let  us  call  this  the  doctrine  of  mediate  manifestation. 
If  this  one  principle  had  been  duly  considered,  it  would 
have  saved  an  immense  amount  of  heated  and  well-nigh 
meaningless  controversy.  The  disputants  have  started 
from  a  premise  of  fiction  and  impossibility.  There  has 
been  a  vague,  half-conscious  assumption  that  the  mani- 
festation of  the  Infinite  to  us  can  be  infinite.  This,  of 
course,  is  an  absurdity.  It  would  imply  infinite  powers 
in  us  to  receive  the  manifestation.  By  our  limitations, 
God  must  come  into  terms  of  the  finite  in  order  to  reveal 
himself  to  us,  or  in  any  way  touch  our  life.  We  -can  not 
grasp  the  entirety  of  his  being.  "We  know  in  part." 
Phenomena  suggest ;  intuition  catches  the  suggestion  and 
interprets  the  power  revealed.  We  can  not  conceive  that 
the  Infinite  should  come  forth  in  self -manifestation  save 
in  and  through  some  finite  medium. 

It  will  be  readily  seen  how  this  principle  applies  to 
miracles.  The  immediate  agent  need  not  be  conceived  as 
the  Infinite  Power.  It  may  be  of  the  least  possible  conse- 
quence to  the  science  of  religion,  or,  indeed,  to  its  practical 
obligations,  whether  we  can  or  can  not  establish  histori- 
cally the  intervention  of  God  with  the  forces  of  nature  in 


THE    REAL   ISSUE.  223 

this  or  that  particular  event.  The  proofs  of  his  being 
and  care  and  sovereign  rule  are  so  infinitely  grander  in 
nature  and  in  the  soul  of  man,  that  they  dwarf  into  insignifi- 
cance any  possible  evidence  from  the  exceptional  display 
of  the  divine  power  in  miracles.  The  longer  I  reflect,  the 
stronger  becomes  the  conviction  in  me  that  the  ultimate 
conclusion  of  Christian  thought  will  be,  that  the  direct 
and  specific  action  of  the  divine  will  and  power  is  not,  and 
never  has  been,  manifested  in  any  phenomena  that  im- 
plies supernatural  interference,  or  the  intrusion  of  a  super- 
human purpose  into  the  order  of  nature.  Such  phenomena 
will  be  referred  at  once  to  finite  purpose  and  agency. 
And  as  the  Scriptures  suggest  the  possibility  of  evil  mira- 
cles, the  character  of  the  agent  will  be  estimated  by  the 
quality  and  apparent  aim  of  the  act,  just  as  we  estimate 
the  character  of  visible  actors.  God  will  be  seen  acting 
directly  only  in  the  unvarying  movements  of  nature  and 
spirit  that  transcend  immeasurably  the  possibilities  of  all 
finite  powers.  But  when  secular  science  assumes  to  pro- 
nounce a  miracle  either  impossible  or  incredible,  because 
the  forces  of  nature  act  with  inflexible  uniformity,  we 
must  ask  its  proofs.  Admit  that  the  uniformity  of  physi- 
cal laws  is  as  relentless  as  fate ;  say  that  they  are  the 
expression  of  infinite  immutability,  and  that  God  would 
shake  our  confidence  in  that  attribute  if  any  of  the  primal 
forces  of  nature  should  be  observed  to  waver,  as  by  arbi- 
trary diversion,  one  hairbreadth  from  the  lines  of  action 
predetermined  under  the  sequence  of  cause  and  effect — is 


224  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

a  miracle  therefore  impossible  or  incredible  ?  To  prove 
this,  you  must  not  only  show  that  God  will  not  or  can  not 
work  a  miracle,  but  also  that  there  is  no  created  finite 
intelligence  serving  his  will  in  the  universe  that  can  and 
will.  Has  science  done  this  ?  Has  she  swept  the  whole 
realm  of  spiritual  existence  with  her  telescope,  and  dem- 
onstrated that  there  is  no  agent  within  all  its  bounds 
competent  for  the  supposed  effect  ?  To  deny  any  intelli- 
gent existence  separate  from  the  body,  is,  of  course,  to  cut 
the  knot ;  but  to  admit  such  existence,  and  then  deny  the 
possibility  of  a  miracle,  seems  to  be  not  only  unscientific, 
but  irrational.  The  boy  snaps  a  pebble  into  the  air. 
Nature's  forces,  in  their  immutable  uniformity,  would  not, 
could  not,  have  done  this  in  the  particular  case.  Is  the 
order  of  nature  violated,  her  uniformity  broken,  by  this 
act  ?  No  ;  a  free  personal  will  or  agent  takes  hold  of  her 
forces,  and  uses  them  for  his  purpose.  Is  reason  shocked 
at  the  supposition  of  such  agents  in  a  higher  world,  or  of 
their  power  to  produce  in  this  effects  that  bear  the  stamp 
of  the  miraculous  ? 

If  it  be  said  that  a  miracle  wrought  through  a  subor- 
dinate finite  agent  could  be  no  proof  of  the  existence  or 
care  of  God,  I  would  refer  the  objector  to  the  old  maxim, 
"  Qui  facit  per  alium,  facit  per  se,"  (whoever  acts 
through  his  agent,  acts  himself.)  We  shall  easily  con- 
clude that  every  good  thing  done  in  this  world  "  com- 
eth  down  from  the  Father  of  lights,  with  whom  is  no 
variableness  nor  shadow  of  turning."  I  care  not  to 


THE   REAL    ISSUE.  225 

insist  that  a  miracle  has  actually  been  wrought  either 
here  or  there.  I  would  strenuously  deny  that  the  evi- 
dences or  interests  of  religion  are  vitally  involved  in  our 
ability  to  prove  any  such  fact.  The  main  question, 
whether  God  actually  upholds  and  rules  this  world  in  the 
interest  of  truth  and  righteousness,  must  be  appealed,  in 
any  case,  to  a  higher  court.  Yet  when  the  denial  of 
miracles  is  set  up  in  the  name  of  natural  law,  it  seems 
worth  while  to  insist,  in  the  interest  of  accurate  thinking, 
that  science  shall  be  scientific. 

What  has  been  said  of  miracles  applies,  with  equal 
pertinency,  to  prayer.  The  Scriptures  uniformly  and 
consistently  teach  that  God  answers  prayer  through  the 
ministration  of  finite  spiritual  agents.  This  takes  away 
all  need  of  the  inference  that  the  infinite  Will  must  turn 
aside  from  his  fixed  and  immutable  course  to  bring  answer. 
You  breathe  the  wish  for  water  to  quench  your  thirst. 
Your  child,  hearing  you,  runs  to  bring  the  brimming  gob- 
let. Your  prayer  is  answered. .  The  order  of  nature  has 
received  no  shock.  Is  reason  revolted  at  the  suggestion 
of  spiritual  agents,  able  and  ready  to  run  to  the  aid  of 
your  want  ?  Deny  the  suggested  fact,  and  you  tread 
close  upon  the  denial  of  a  spiritual  immortality.  Admit 
the  fact,  and  neither  the  demonstrations  of  science  nor 
the  deductions  of  reason  will  support  the  inference  that  it 
is  vain  to  expect  answers  to  prayer.  As  miracles  are 
possible  through  the  mediate  manifestations  of  divine 
power,  so  answers  to  prayer  through  'mediatorial  minis- 
tration. 


226  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  fixed  order  of  nature  will  ever 
be  disturbed,  in  the  slightest  degree,  to  answer  prayer  ; 
yet  I  make  no  doubt  either  of  its  benefits  or  of  its  answers 
from  objective  sources.  Prayer  is  the  rational  means  to 
certain  desirable  ends,  as  much  as  plowing  and  sowing. 
"Sow,  and  ye  shall  reap;"  "Ask,  and  ye  shall  receive." 
These  are  kindred  promises,  though  belonging  to  different 
spheres.  Work  takes  hold  of  material  forces  ;  prayer 
takes  hold  of  spiritual  forces.  Labor  for  material  bless- 
ings ;  pray  for  spiritual  ;  recognize  the  goodness  of  God 
in  both — this  is  the  will  of  God,  as  read  in  the  order  of 
nature.  This  will  be  the  law  of  a  scientifically  instructed 
piety,  which  holds  that  will  in  deepest  reverence.  Beg- 
ging heaven  for  material  gifts  that  can  come  only  through 
exceptional  means  becomes  revolting  to  noble  minds,  for 
deeper  reasons  than  the  impossibility  of  answers  through 
the  agency  moved  by  the  prayer ;  but  the  immediate  con- 
tact of  the  Infinite  with  the  finite  mind  is  a  scientific 
truth,  if  there  is  a  God,  and  I  can  not  believe  that  the 
noblest  will  ever  cease  to  need  and  profit  by  that  highest 
form  of  prayer,  the  devout  contemplation  which  opens 
the  yearning  capacities  of  the  human  soul  to  the  conscious 
incoming  and  indwelling  of  the  Infinite  Life  and  Love. 

To  sum  up  this  discussion,  then,  the  real  issue  between 
sacred  science  and  secular  science  is,  not  whether  God 
created  in  this  or  that  particular  time  or  manner,  nor 
whether  his  care  intervened  miraculously  for  human  needs 
in  this  or  that  particular  event,  nor  whether  he  inspired  a 


THE    REAL    ISSUE.  227 

few  men  to  infallible  utterances ;  but  the  issue  is,  whether 
God  created,  cared  for,  or  inspired  at  all ;  and  that  is 
equivalent  to  the  issue  whether  there  is  or  is  not  a  God. 


Physical  Man  the  Final  Term  of 
Material  Evolution. 


A  lecture  delivered  in  the  Independent  Church,  Oakland,  Sunday 
evening,  February  24th,  1878. 

Eight  or  nine  years  ago,  after  considerable  reading  and 
study  upon  the  facts  in  the  case,  I  felt  myself  driven  to 
accept  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  Not  satisfied  that  the 
explanation  proposed  by  Darwin  aad  others  had  grasped 
all  the  forces  that  have  been  active  in  producing  the  vastly 
varied  phenomena  of  life  on  our  globe,  I  nevertheless  found 
it  impossible  to  doubt  longer  that  the  word  evolution  fitly 
expresses  the  law  under  which  those  forces  have  acted — 
that  species  are  genetically  derived,  not  separately  created. 
The  facts  amount  to  scientific  demonstration.  But  it 
seems  desirable  to  state  here  one  feature  of  the  law  of 
evolution,  which,  if  not  observed,  leaves  the  way  open  to 
many  absurd  misunderstandings.  The  popular  idea  is 
that  evolution  implies  continuous  and  invariable  progress ; 
that  its  course  is  ever  forward  and  upward ;  that  every 
new  species  springing  from  any  well-developed  form  of 
life  is  higher  than  the  parent  form.  This  is  by  no  means 
the  case.  The  new  species  is  differentiated  (to  use  the 
current  word  of  science)  from  its  progenitor,  but  is  not 


THE   FINAL   TERM   OF  EVOLUTION.  229 

always  higher.  Sometimes  there  is  retrogression  instead 
of  progression.  The  new  form  is  lower  than  that  from 
which  it  sprung.  Sometimes  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether 
it  is  lower  or  higher  ;  we  are  only  sure  that  it  is  different. 
In  some  instances,  from  one  original  stock  have  sprung 
several  branches,  some  higher,  others  lower  than  the 
original;  each  differing  from  all  the  others  as  greatly  as, 
or  even  more  than,  it  differs  from  the  common  parent. 
Each  proves  to  be  a  new  species  which  perpetuates  its 
kind.  The  general  law  here  indicated  is  thus  formulated 
by  Professor  Joseph  LeConte  :  "  The  first  introduced  of 
any  class  or  order  were  not  typical  representatives  of  that 
class  or  order,  but  connecting  links  with  other  classes  or 
orders  ;  the  complete  separation  of  the  two  or  more  classes 
or  orders  represented  being  the  result  of  subsequent  evo- 
lution."* Thus  that  strange  flying  creature  called  the 
Archseopteryx,  with  the  long,  pointed  tail  of  the  reptile, 
edged  with  flat,  radiating  feathers,  like  the  tail  of  a  bird, 
with  feathered  arms  or  fore-legs  like  wings,  yet  terminat- 
ing in  claws,  like  the  fore-legs  of  the  reptile,  seems  to  have 
been  one  of  these  connecting  or  comprehensive  types.  In 
one  direction  possibly  sprung  some  reptilian  form,  a  lower 
or  degenerate  offspring  of  the  flying  parent ;  in  the  other, 
almost  certainly  rose  the  perfect  bird,  nobler  than  its  pro- 
genitor, 

"To  sweep  the  heavens  on  easy  wing." 

So,  again,  the  mud-fishes  (dipneusta),  that  make  a  nest 

*  "  Elements  of  Geology,"  p.  332.     See,  also,  Spencer's  "  Sociology," 
Vol.  I,  p.  106. 


230  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

of  leaves  for  themselves  in  the  dry  mud  during  summer, 
and  breathe  through  lungs,  then  in  the  winter  take  to  the 
water  of  marshes  and  rivers,  and  breathe  through  gills 
like  fishes,  are  thought  to  have  branched  one  way  into  a 
low  form  of  exclusively  gill-breathing  water  animal,  and 
another  way  into  an  exclusively  lung-breathing  amphibian. 
The  ascidian  and  amphioxus  are  also  notable  transitional 
forms.  The  whole  course  of  evolution,  indeed,  is  marked 
by  examples  of  such  generalized  or  connecting  types. 
They  seem  not  to  have  been  very  numerous  comparatively, 
nor,  as  a  rule,  to  have  lasted  very  long.  They  come  forth 
in  the  economy  of  nature,  enrich  the  earth  with  new  va- 
rieties of  life,  and  then  disappear,  or  survive  in  only  a  few 
obscure  representatives.  Hence,  evolution  does  not  affirm, 
as  is  popularly  supposed,  that  man  is  descended  directly 
from  the  highest  of  the  simian  tribes,  the  gorilla,  chim- 
panzee, orang,  or  gibbon,  but  would  rather  suggest  some 
higher  intermediate  form,  of  which  the  ape  is  a  degenerate, 
and  man  an  improved  branch.  That  no  remains  of  this 
intermediate  being  have  been  found,  weighs  little  against 
this  suggestion.  According  to  the  general  law,  we  should 
expect  them  to  be  but  few ;  and  too  small  a  section  of 
the  earth  has  been  thoroughly  explored  to  justify  the  con- 
clusion that  they  never  will  be  discovered.  To  a  wider 
search,  the  continents  may  any  day  yield  up  the  proofs 
that  vindicate  the  regularity  and  uniformity  of  the  meth- 
ods of  nature. 

But  here  man  is.     Some  power  or  process  has  placed 


THE  FINAL  TEEM  OF  EVOLUTION.  231 

this  supreme  fact  of  creation  before  us  for  our  study,  to 
make  out  of  him  what  we  can.  That  in  physical  struct- 
ure he  is  closely  allied  to  the  animal  races,  no  one  will 
dispute.  It  is  plain,  also,  that  he  stands  at  the  head  of 
the  animal  kingdom.  Physically,  he  is  the  most  complex 
and  highly  organized  being  we  know.  Nature,  at  one 
with  sacred  scripture,  crowns  him  king,  and  gives  him 
dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  the  fowls  of  the  air,  and 
over  every  living  thing  that  creepeth  on  the  earth.  He 
comes  forth  as  the  last-born  species  in  the  sub-kingdom 
of  vertebrates.  Then,  as  we  trace  a  genetic  relationship 
through  the  various  grades  of  life,  from  man  down  to  the 
lowest,  the  question  rises  spontaneously  in  the  mind,  is  he 
the  last  and  highest  to  be  expected  ?  Is  he  the  final  term 
of  nature's  physical  progress  ?  Does  the  upward  course  of 
the  material  forces  of  evolution  end  in  him  ?  Or  may  we 
expect  them  to  differentiate  still  further,  and  produce 
some  higher  species,  that  will  stand  in  a  relation  to  him 
like  that  which  he  holds  to  the  species  next  below  him- 
self ?  This  question  possesses  more  than  a  scientific  inter- 
est. Its  bearing  on  the  moral  and  religious  view  of  man 
and  his  destiny  makes  a  conclusive  answer,  if  one  may  be 
given,  peculiarly  desirable. 

When  I  first  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  evidences 
of  evolution  must  compel  the  assent  of  thinking  men, 
sooner  or  later,  this  question  at  once  confronted  me.  Along 
with  it  came  the  thought  that  in  the  brain  (the  size  and 
quality  of  which  peculiarly  characterize  the  human  spe- 


232  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

cies),  and  in  its  functions  and  its  relations  to  the  whole 
body,  ought,  if  anywhere,  to  be  found  the  answer.  In  a 
conversation  on  the  subject  with  the  late  Dr.  Durant, 
President  of  our  University,  he  suggested  that  even  the 
position  of  the  human  body,  perfectly  erect  as  it  should 
be,  might  furnish,  when  compared  with  the  position  of 
the  lower  animals,  a  hint  of  completeness.  Professor 
Joseph  LeConte  also  informed  me  that  Agassiz  had  noticed 
the  fact  of  the  gradual  turning  of  the  face  from  the  back 
of  the  head  in  the  lowest  vertebrates,  over  to  the  front  in 
the  highest.  Acting  upon  these  hints,  I  began  to  observe 
animal  forms  more  closely.  If  I  have  not  been  a  misin- 
terpreter  of  the  facts,  there  is  to  be  found  in  the  very 
steps  of  evolutionary  progress  leading  up  to  man,  viewed 
in  connection  with  his  physical  form  and  structure,  full 
evidence  that  physical  evolution  has  reached  its  goal  in 
man  ;  that  in  a  typical  human  body,  perfect  of  its  kind, 
the  Creator's  ideal  would  be  realized.  Various  lines  of 
advance,  running  through  the  whole  course  of  organic 
evolution,  all  seem  to  center  and  end  in  the  form  of  man. 
Let  us  inquire  if  they  do  not  justify  the  conclusion  that 
the  forces  of  evolution  have  done  their  best  in  him. 

I.  A  presumption  to  this  effect,  of  more  or  less  force, 
may  be  drawn  from  the  fact  that  there  has  been  no  radi- 
cal change  of  type  since  man  first  appeared.  We  know 
with  reasonable  certainty  what  the  primitive  man  was, 
physically,  from  his  remains  that  have  been  exhumed  in 
various  parts  of  the  earth.  The  "Man  of  Mentone," 


THE   FINAL   TEEM  OF  EVOLUTION.  233 

whose  skeleton  was  found  in  an  Italian  cave,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  bones  of  the  cave  bear,  hyena,  and  lion,  con- 
temporaneous with  the  mammoth,  and  other  species  of 
animals  long  since  extinct,  must  have  been  physically  a 
fine  specimen  of  the  genus  homo.  He  was  tall  and  well- 
proportioned.  His  brain  was  as  large  as  the  average 
human  brain  of  the  present  day.  Yet  his  life  ran  its 
course  far  back  in  the  Paleolithic  era,  probably  tens  of 
thousands  of  years  before  history  had  begun  to  take  note 
of  human  deeds. 

True,  this  evidence  from  time  is  only  presumptive.  No 
one  claims  that  it  furnishes  demonstration.  It  may  be 
urged  against  its  conclusiveness  that  many  lower  forms 
of  life  held  possession  of  the  earth  a  much  longer  time 
than  we  claim  for  man,  without  showing  any  advance  of 
grade.  The  rhizopod  and  other  low  forms  of  marine 
fauna  may  have  passed  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years 
without  witnessing  any  radical  advance  of  type.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  must  be  remembered  that,  as  the  forms 
of  life  become  more  highly  organized,  more  complex  and 
active,  the  rate  of  evolution  is  accelerated.  This  seems  to 
be  a  general  law.  Man,  therefore,  as  the  most  highly 
organized  animal,  ought  to  require  only  a  comparatively 
brief  time  to  outgrow  himself  in  the  way  of  evolution,  if 
he  is  ever  to  do  so  at  all.  We  hence  conclude  that  if  a 
creature  higher  than  man  in  physical  type  is  ever  to  ap- 
pear, he  is  rather  tardy  in  his  coming. 

II.  Turning  to  more  positive  evidence,  let  us  see  what 


234 


A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 


suggestions  may  be  found 
in  the  comparative  position 
of  the  body.  Begin  with 
the  lowest  of  the  Verte- 
brates, the  sub-kingdom  to 
which  man  belongs.  Take 
the  fish  or  the  serpent,  and 
the  lowest  reptiles.  The 
position  which  nature  gives 
them  is  horizontal,  and,  if 
their  life  is  on  land,  prone  in 
the  dust.  Their  vertebral 
column  maintains  along  its 
whole  length  nearly  a  level 
with  the  horizon.  The  be- 
ginning could  not  be  more 
groveling.  But  as  you  come 
to  a  little  higher  species, 
as,  for  example,  the  sala- 
mander* and  the  horned-toad  of  California,  the  body  be- 
gins to  be  lifted  up  out  of  the  dust  on  legs,  and  the  head 
rises  slightly  above  the  line  of  the  vertebral  column.  The 
cervical  vertebrae  bend  upward.  In  our  domestic  animals 
every  one  can  observe  large  progress  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. In  the  horse,  especially,  the  legs,  instead  of  project- 
ing and  sprawling  out  from  the  sides,  as  in  the  highest  of 


*  See  i  lustrations  uader  the  word  in  Webster's  and  Worcester's  Dic- 
tionaries. 


THE   FINAL   TERM  OF  EVOLUTION.  2§5 

the  reptiles,  are  firmly  under  the  body,  lifting  the  animal 
clear  away  from  the  ground,  and  the  arching  neck  car- 
ries the  head  almost  up  to  the  angle  of  forty-five  degrees, 
the  half-way  line  between  the  horizontal  and  the  perpen- 
dicular. In  the  lowest  of  the  simian  tribes,  still  further 
advance  is  indicated  by  a  position  above  this  line.  The 
bodies  of  the  higher  species  are  almost  erect.  In  the 
typical  man  perfection  is  reached.  He  stands  erect,  his 
feet  pointing  to  the  center  of  the  earth,  his  head  to  the 
zenith — the  attitude  of  noblest  majesty. 

This  upright  position  is  also  the  one  in  which  least  physi- 
cal strength  is  expended  in  supporting  the  body,  either 
standing  still,  in  locomotion,  or  at  active  work.  Here, 
manifestly,  the  limit  of  this  line  of  progress  is  reached. 
Beginning  in  the  horizontal,  evolution  ends  in  the  perpen- 
dicular. It  can  go  no  further  in  that  direction  without 
leaning  backward,  and  descending  toward  the  groveling 
position  from  which  it  started.  May  we  not  hence  infer 
that  in  the  matter  of  position,  evolution  has  done  its  best 
in  man  ? 

III.  Several  examples  may  be  drawn  from  morphology, 
or  the  study  of  the  external  forms  of  animals,  that  clearly 
look  toward  the  same  conclusion.  The  most  obvious, 
perhaps,  is  the  one  already  mentioned  as  suggested  by 
Agassiz.  The  face,  in  the  lower  species  of  vertebrates 
with  which  we  are  familiar  (fishes  and  ophidian  reptiles), 
in  its  relative  position  to  the  vertebral  column,  as  com- 
pared with  man,  is  on  the  back  of  the  head.  As  the  forms 


236  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

of  life  begin  to  rise  in  grade,  the  face  begins  to  turn  over 
toward  the  front,  making  an  increasing  angle  with  the 
line  of  the  back-bone.  Observe,  again,  the  salamander 
and  horned  toad  already  named.  In  the  hog,  the  lowest 
of  our  domesticated  animals,  a  considerable  advance  is 
indicated  by  the  increase  of  this  angle.  In  our  greater 
domestic  favorites,  this  progress  has  gone  so  far  as  to  carry 
the  line  of  the  face  well  over  toward  a  right  angle  with 
the  vertebral  column.  In  the  gibbon  and  orang  of  Asia, 
among  the  highest  of  the  anthropoid  apes,  several  degrees 
of  further  advance  are  seen  ;  the  change  is  almost  com- 
plete. In  man,  at  last,  the  face  comes  to  the  front.  It 
has  changed  sides  on  the  head,  having  made  a  revolution 
of  nearly  one  hundred  and  eighty  degrees.  Here  it  is  ob- 
vious, again,  that  we  have  come  to  the  end  of  this  line  of 
evolution.  For  physical  reasons  it  can  not  well  go  farther. 
We  can  not  conceive  that  if  this  change  should  turn  the  face 
still  farther  around  its  features  would  be  improved  in  posi- 
tion, more  beautiful,  or  better  subserve  their  proper  func- 
tions. 

Look,  again,  at  the  position  of  the  eye.  In  the  fish 
it  is  on  the  side  of  the  head.  The  axis  of  vision,  pierc- 
ing the  center  of  each  eye,  and  running  through  the 
head,  would  make  nearly  a  straight  line,  like  the 
axle  running  through  the  hubs  of  a  pair  of  wheels. 
Sight  is  monocular.  The  object  seen  by  one  eye  is  con- 
cealed from  the  other,  because  the  animal's  own  head  is 
in  its  light.  But  as  the  species  rise  in  grade,  the  eye 


THE   FINAL   TERM  OF  EVOLUTION.  237 

moves  round  to  the  front  of  the  head,  just  as  we  have 
seen  the  face  turning  over  to  the  front.  At  about  the 
medium  line,  vision  becomes  dimly  binocular.  From  this 
point  it  grows  clearer  at  every  step  of  progress.  In  the 
anthropoid  apes,  the  limit  of  advance  is  almost  touched. 
In  man,  the  axes  of  vision  become  exactly  parallel,  and 
sight  is  perfectly  stereoscopic.  Evolution  can  go  no  far- 
ther on  that  line  of  improvement  without  a  result  which 
is  regarded  as  neither  a  beauty  nor  an  advantage.  No 
one  wishes  to  have  the  axes  of  vision  cross  each  other. 

I  can  see  no  marked  significance  in  what  is  called  the 
" facial  angle,"  beyond  what  has  already  been  observed  in 
the  relation  of  the  face  to  the  line  of  the  vertebral  column. 
Comparative  anatomists  admit  that  this  angle  is  affected  by 
so  many  local  variations  of  form,  of  no  special  significance, 
that  it  can  not  be  relied  on  as  establishing  any  charac- 
teristic distinctions  of  species.  But  what  may,  for  con- 
venience sake,  be  called  the  axis  of  the  profile,  seems  to 
me  to  afford  the  base-line  of  a  measurement  that  is  far 
more  suggestive.  Every  one  must  notice  that  in  the  low- 
est vertebrates  there  is  properly  no  nose  at  all,  and  the 
muzzle,  when  the  upper  and  lower  jaws  are  closed  together, 
is  wedge-shaped.  The  jaws  of  a  fish  make  a  blunt  wedge. 
The  lower  land  vertebrates,  reptiles  and  saurians,  approxi- 
mate the  fish  in  this  respect,  but  in  them  nostrils  appear. 
These  begin  to  thicken  the  point  of  the  wedge.  A  broad, 
flat  muzzle  results.  The  nostrils  turn  upward  and  out- 
ward. Nature  has  blocked  out  a  nose.  As  the  grade  of 


238  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

life  rises,  the  nose  contracts  in  width,  and  increases  rela- 
tively in  length  and  prominence.  The  nostrils  gradually 
turn  inward  and  downward.  Every  naturalist  will  recall 
at  once  in  this  connection  the  fact  that  the  monkeys 
grouped  as  platyrrhine,  from  the  comparative  breadth  of 
the  nose,  are  much  lower  in  type  than  the  catarrhine,  or 
narrow-nosed  species.  Observe  that  the  nose  proper  is  to 
be  carefully  distinguished  from  the  upper  jaw  on  which  it 
is  situated,  and  from  any  prehensile  appendage,  like  the 
trunk  of  the  elephant,  and  the  similar  instrument  on  the 
snout  of  the  ant-eater ;  then  it  will  be  obvious  that  in  the 
human  species  the  nose  is  at  once  narrower  and  more 
prominent,  relatively,  than  is  seen  in  any  animal  form. 
'The  tubes  of  the  nostrils  have  become  parallel,  and  open 
directly  downward.  Here  we  come  to  another  limit. 

Now,  if  we  turn  to  the  under  side  of  the  wedge,  the 
lower  jaw,  as  we  found  at  first  no  nose  on  the  upper,  so 
here  we  find  no  chin.  It  may  be  a  fancy,  but  observation 
of  race  and  individual  characteristics,  suggests  the  query, 
whether  the  development  of  this  organ  or  feature  may 
not  express  the  evolution  of  will  power,  and  perhaps  of 
affection,  which,  in  man,  give  what  we  call  force  of  char- 
acter and  personal  magnetism — in  excess,  degenerating 
into  selfish  ambition,  willfulness,  conceit,  or  avarice.  At 
any  rate,  the  lower  face,  or  chin,  and  the  upper  face,  or 
forehead,  seem  equally  to  mark  the  stage  arrived  at  in 
evolution.  Chin  and  brain  advance  pari  passu.  The 
mid-face  becomes  relatively  less  prominent.  Run  along 


THE   FINAL   TERM   OF   EVOLUTION.  239 

up  the  scale  which  we  have  instanced  so  often,  from  the 
fish- wedge  to  the  human  face,  and  this  will  be  apparent. 
There  is  a  constant  receding  of  the  muzzle  proper,  or 
upper  and  lower  jaws,  and  an  increasing  prominence  of 
the  forehead  and  chin,  until,  in  the  human  countenance, 
the  upper,  middle,  and  lower  face  are  on  a  straight  line. 
In  the  classic  Greek  face,  accepted  as  the  ideal  of  the 
human  features,  draw  a  line  from  the  center  of  the  fore- 
head, or  extreme  front  of  the  brain,  to  the  end  of  the  chin, 


Fig.    2.     HERCULES   AND   OMPHALE. 

and  it  just  touches  the  root  of  the  upper  lip  below  the 
nose.  This  is  what  I  have  denominated  the  axis  of  the 
profile.  The  average  face  of  civilized  peoples  will  stand 
the  test  of  this  line,  or  nearly  so.  If  we  apply  it  in  savage 
tribes,  or  even  to  half-civilized  races,  it  will  suggest  the 
question  whether  they  have  attained  a  complete  develop- 
ment physically,  any  more  than  they  have  mentally  and 
morally.  Observe  any  group  of  Chinese  you  may  happen 
to  fall  in  with.  Compare  them  in  this  respect  with  the 


240 


A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 


representatives  of  other  na- 
tionalities with  whom  they 
here  mingle.  In  no  case 
will  you  fail  to  observe  a 
most  striking  difference.  In 
the  average  Mongolian  face, 
the  middle  portion,  or  muz- 
zle, falls  more  than  half  an 
inch  forward  of  the  axial 
line  suggested.  In  the  av- 
erage negro  face  of  pure 
Fig.  3.  AH  SIX.*  blood,  this  characteristic  is 

(Photograph  by  Wm.  B.  Ingersoll,  Esq.)    stiH  more  marked,  the  pl'Og- 

nathous  muzzle  often  projecting  an  inch  and  a  half,  and 
sometimes  full  two  inches  in  front  of  the  axial  line. 
Whether  we  regard  their  physical  development  as  com- 
plete or  arrested,  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  if  the 
intellects  of  these  savage  and  semi-civilized  races  could 
be  roused  by  the'  studies  that  make  the  glory  of  the  cul- 
tivated mind,  and  their  consciences  quickened  with  the 
sense  of  a  higher  morality,  and  their  wills  energized  by 
the  enterprise  of  civilization,  their  features  would  soon 
begin  to  confess  the  influence  in  a  very  visible  change  of 
form.  The  animal  prominence  of  jaw  would  recede,  fore- 
head and  chin  would  advance,  and  in  a  very  few  genera- 
tions the  upper,  middle,  and  lower  face  would  be  found  in 

*  The  artist  was  directed  to  take  the  photograph  of  the  first  live  Chinaman 
he  could  catch.  This  is  the  result.  The  prominence  of  the  mid-face  is  quite 
within,  rather  than  beyond,  the  average. 


THE    FINAL    TKRM   OF    EVOLUTION. 


241 


line.  Take  the  infant  of 
prognathous  savages  into  a 
civilized  home,  and  give  it 
the  best  culture  of  educa- 
tion, and  the  result  will  be 
expressed  in  a  greatly  mod- 
ified form  of  features.  On 
the  other  hand,  among  civ- 
ilized and  highly  cultivated 
people,  you  will  meet  in- 
stances, not  very  rare,  of 
persons  in  whom  the  fore- 
head and  chin  are  relatively  Fi-  4"  MARQUESAS 
so  prominent  that  the  mid-face  falls  considerably  in  the 
rear  of  the  axial  line.  The  profile  is  actually  concave  or 
dishing.  I  have  never  discovered  one  example  of  this 

kind  among  Chinese,  In- 
dians, or  Negroes.  In 
such  instances  there  may 
be  superior  powers  of  in- 
tellect in  some  directions, 
and  a  certain  moral  in- 
tensity, but  some  want 
of  balance  is  likely  also 
to  be  observed ;  the  equi- 
librium of  nature  is  not 
maintained.  The  char- 
Fig.  ,  MAORI  WOMAN.  acter  wiil  commonly  be 


242 


A   REASONABLE    CHRISTIANITY. 


marred  by  eccentricity, 
or  some  form  of  amia- 
ble weakness.  Evolu- 
tion has  gone  beyond 
its  due  bounds.  But  we 
never  see  a  very  prom- 
inent normal  forehead 
matched  with  a  weak, 
receding  chin. 

It  is  worthy  of  re- 
mark in  passing,  that, 
in  all  savage  tribes,  you 

Fig.  6.    PINO.  Chief  of,  he  Ules,  Colorado.-  ^    ^  ^    broad|  flat 

nose,  with  the  nostrils  apparently  struggling  to  turn  out- 
ward and  upward.  The  depressed  point  and  unshaped 
outline  stop  at  the  child  stage  of  development.  The  bulb- 
ous nostrils,  with  round  openings  like  large  gimlet  holes 
(the  nose  of  the  young  child  simply  enlarged),  spreading 
the  base,  as  if  growth  in  length  had  met  some  obstacle 
that  compelled  it  to  find  room  in  width,  just  hint  the  pe- 
culiar form  and  expression  of  the  reptile  face.  In  the 
semi-civilized  races,  you  will  always  see  this  feature  mod- 
ifying in  the  direction  of  the  higher  type.  Taking  all 
these  facts  connected  with  the  morphology  of  the  human 
features,  I  think  they  give  support  to  the  conclusion  that 

*  The  typical  Indian  face  is  often  represented  with  a  long,  sharp  nose,  and 
projecting  chin — such  a  face  as  is  never  actually  seen  among  our  aborigines. 

Figures  4,  5,  and  6  are  from  photographs  obtained  among  the  natives,  by 
C.  D.  Voy,  Esq. ,  of  Oakland. 


THE   FINAL   TERM   OF   EVOLUTION. 


243 


Fig.   7.     HOTTENTOT  WOMAN.  Fig.   8.     FEMALE  GORILLA.* 

(From    Winchell's  Pre-adamites.} 

in  the  typical  face  of  the  civilized  man,  nature  shows  the 
final  result  of  physical  evolution. 

Other  examples  might  be  drawn  from  the  shape  and 
structure  of  the  eye,  the  ear,  the  mouth  or  lips,  and  per- 
haps from  every  other  feature.  I  doubt  not,  also,  that  a 
more  minute  acquaintance  with  comparative  anatomy 
and  physiology  than  I  can  pretend  to,  viewed  with  this 
reference,  would  reveal  the  same  truth  in  the  relative 
proportions  of  the  arms  and  limbs,  the  structure  and 
functions  of  the  heart  and  lungs,  the  size  and  arrange- 
ment of  the  muscles — in  short,  in  almost  every  part  and 
member  of  the  vital  organism.  The  illustrations  given 

*  I  cannot  resist  the  suspicion  that  the  look  of  this  beast's  face  is  more 
human  than  in  the  original ;  but  the  profile  and  form  of  the  features  are,  no 
doubt,  correctly  represented,  and  clearly  fall  in  with  the  line  of  thought  I  aim 
to  illustrate. 


244 


A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 


but  just  open  a  glimpse  into  a 
field  upon  which  rich  fruits 
may  hereafter  be  gathered. 

But  I  will  tax  your  patience 
at  this  time  with  but  one  illus- 
tration further.  It  is  drawn 
from  the  evolution  of  the  nerv- 
ous system,  or  what  has  come 
to  be  known  among  scientists 
as  ceplializaticyii.  It  is  nature's 
process  of  brain  building.  The 
example  may  be  called  at  once 

Fig.  9.    TAMITIWAKA  XKNK,  .  .     _ 

structural   and    psychological. 

Maori  Chief.*  r  J 

It  is  furnished  by  the  material 

organ  of  the  mind.  It  was  the  first  to  suggest  the  argu- 
ment I  Jiave  attempted  here,  and  to  me  it  seems  still  at  once 
the  most  richly  suggestive  and  the  most  conclusive  of  any 
I  can  present.  Let  us  begin  with  the  lowest  discovered 
form  of  animate  existence,  the  moner.  This  is  a  micro- 
scopic speck  of  protoplasm,  or  jelly-like  albumen,  appar- 
ently structureless  and  inorganic.  Yet  the  principle  of 
life  is  in  it,  for  it  can  assimilate  food  and  propagate  its 

*  From  a  photograph  furnished  by  Hugh  Craig,  Esq.,  of  Oakland,  who 
was  with  the  English  army  in  one  of  their  later  wars  with  the  Maoris,  and  who 
sends  me  the  following  note  with  the  picture  : 

"Tamiti  Waka  Nene,  an  aboriginal  New  Zealand  Chief,  or  Rangatira 
Maori,  of  the  Ngapuhi  tribe  in  the  North  Island  of  New  Zealand,  who  be- 
friended the  European  settlers  in  the  Maori  war  of  1840-41  when  Honi  Heke, 
another  aboriginal,  attempted  to  drive  the  settlers  from  Kororareka.  The 
English  Government,  in  grateful  remembrance  of  the  services  of  the  old  hero, 
allowed  him  an  annual  honorarium  from  that  date  until  his  death." 

The  Maoris  were  probably  the  highest  type  of  people  on  the  earth,  who 
ranked  as  savages  when  the  English  took  possession  of  New  Zealand.  Their 
superiority  finds  clear  expression  in  their  features. 


THE    FINAL   TERM   OF   EVOLUTION  245 

kind.  It  is  all  mouth,  for  it  absorbs  its  nutriment  indif- 
ferently from  every  side.  The  whole  thing,  though  un- 
doubtedly a  completely  developed  organism,  appears  to  be 
but  a  germinal  vesicle,  not  distinguishable  from  the  egg 
of  higher  forms  of  life.  The  first  process  of  differentiation, 
or  that  activity  which  makes  one  part  distinguishable 
from  another  in  structure  and  function,  shows  itself  under 
the  microscope  in  the  formation  of  an  interior  nucleus 
or  germ-spot,  and  within  this  again  of  a  nucleolus.  At 
this  stage  the  animal  is  called  the  amoeba.  It  multiplies, 
like  the  moner,  by  fission,  or  self-division,  forming,  as  it 
grows,  another  nucleus  and  nucleolus,  and  then  separating. 
The  new  individual,  after  this  separation,  is  an  adult,  a 
full-grown  animal,  sets  up  an  independent  business,  and 
grows  and  divides  in  the  same  manner  to  produce  others 
of  its  kind.  But  in  some  cases  the  two  parts,  instead  of 
separating,  cling  together.  The  one  becomes  two,  the 
two  become  four,  the  four  eight,  the  eight  sixteen,  and  so 
on,  until  the  growing  union  becomes  a  countless  mass  of 
cells,  each  with  its  germ-spot  and  nucleolus,  each  undis- 
tinguishable  in  appearance  and  function  from  an}  of  the 
others.  The  whole  seem  but  a  structureless  drop  of  jelly. 
It  is  now  called  the  synamoeba,  or  amoeba  community, 
and  sometimes  the  morula,  from  its  resemblance  in  form 
to  a  mulberry  or  blackberry.  Here,  again,  nature  stops 
with  some  examples,  and  development  goes  no  higher. 
Another  form  of  life  is  complete.  But  in  another  line  of 
evolution,  differing  for  reasons  which  no  science  can  yet 


246  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

penetrate,  an  indentation  appears  on  one  side  of  the  globu- 
lar mass  of  cells.  The  creature  assumes  the  form  of  an 
open  sack.  Nature,  refusing  longer  to  eat  through  the 
pores  of  the  skin,  or  absorb  her  nourishment  from  all 
sides  alike,  is  forming  a  mouth.  In  the  peculiar  internal 
structure  of  this  sack,  she  is  indicating  her  intention,  also, 
to  match  that  mouth  with  a  stomach.  Hence  this  animal 
is  named  the  gastrula. 

I  do  not  propose  to  trace  the  steps  of  evolution  further, 
so  far  as  the  whole  animal  form  is  concerned.  At  about 
this  stage,  we  reach  the  fact  essential  to  my  present  pur- 
pose. Under  a  powerful  microscope,  the  creature  of  this 
grade  reveals  certain  fine  whitish  filaments,  or  threads, 
running  through  the  albuminous  substance  of  its  body. 
They  lie,  for  the  most  part,  near  the  surface,  with  some 
degree  of  order,  and  are  most  numerous  at  the  points  of 
the  animal's  greatest  activity.  At  first  discovery,  biolo- 
gists were  puzzled  what  to  make  of  these  ;  but  upon  trac- 
ing their  development  in  higher  forms,  it  became  evident 
that  they  were  the  nervous  system — hints  toward  a 
brain,  although  here  scattered  all  over  the  body.  In  more 
advanced  species,  small  knots  showed  themselves  forming 
along  these  lines,  as  if  nature  had  here  and  there  tied  the 
threads.  Tracing  these  in  still  higher  species,  observers 
satisfied  themselves  that  they  are  no  other  than  ganglia, 
or  nerve  centers.  They  are  the  reservoirs  where  nature 
stores  up  a  reserve  of  nervous  force  for  the  hour  of  action. 
As  the  grade  of  life  rose,  these  grew  larger,  and  also  more 


THE   FINAL   TEEM   OF   EVOLUTION. 


247 


numerous  toward  one  extreme  of  the  body.  The  white 
threads  also  seemed  to  gather  toward  a  median  line,  run- 
ning lengthwise  along  the  upper  side  of  the  animal,  where 
the  notochord,  or  rudimentary  back-bone,  was  to  appear  in 


Fig.  10.    STENTOR    POLYMORPHIC.     Magnified  130  Diameters. 
( Trumpet  A  n  imalcule. ) 

a,  posterior  ;  sh,  sheath  into  which  the  animal  withdraws  when  disturbed ; 
rf,  disk,  or  trumpet  expansion  ;  c,  ciliated  border ;  ^,  larger  rigid  cilia  ;  m,  mouth; 
r,  r,  r,  radiating  filaments,  supposed  to  be  the  nervous  system ;  cv,  contractile 
vesicle  and  its  prolongation,  cvr,  cv2,  the  point  of  greatest  activity  closely  con- 
nected with  the  nerves,  (From  Prof.  Henry  J.  Clark). 


248 


A   REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY 


h          ma 


Fig.  n.    IDEAL  PROTOZOAN. 
Longitudinal   View 


k  nc 


Fig.  12.    Foreshortened  View 
of  Same. 


nc  in  a  h 

Fig.  13.    IDEAL   ZOOPHYTE.     Long.  view.       Fig.  14.     For.  view  of  same. 


Fig.  15.    IDEAL  Ivt  JLLJSCAN*.   Long.  view.       Fig.  16.     For.  view  of  same. 


M,  mouth;  a,  posterior;  ma,  digestive  cavity  ;  h,  heart  ;  nc,  nerve  cells  or 
threads;  g,  g,  ganglia  or  ner\e  centers;  c,  nerve  collar,  or  ring  uniting  the 
ganglia  on  each  side  of  the  heart  and  the  central  ganglion  at  the  head  of  the 
main  nerve  trunk,  or  median  line  that  ultimately  develops  into  the  spinal 
cord,  en;  ch,  position  of  internal  skeleton  in  the  vertebrate.  The  correspond- 
ing parts  are  lettered  alike  in  all  the  figures.  For  greater  simplicity  I  have  not 
followed  exactly  the  lettering  of  the  author. 


THE  FINAL  TERM  OF  EVOLUTION. 


249 


g  A  ma. 

Fig.  17.    IDEAL  ARTICULATE.    Long.  view. 


ch     nc      c    g 


Fig.  19.    IDEAL  VERTEBRATE.    Long.  view. 


Fig.  1 8.      For.  view  of  Fig.  17. 


For.  view  of  Fig.  19. 


The  annexed  ideal  figures  are  taken  from  Mind  in  Nature,  pp.  122-3,  an 
able  scientific  work  by  the  late  Prof.  Henry  James  Clark,  of  Cambridge.  The 
author  was  a  patient,  original  observer  of  microscopic  forms  of  life.  These 
figures  may  not  be  the  best  representation  that  can  be  constructed  of  the  early 
progressive  development  of  the  nervous  system.  Later  studies  make  it  probf 
able  that  the  leading  types  of  animal  structure,  they  are  intended  to  set  be- 
fore us,  are  not  in  a  direct  line  of  evolution  ;  the  lower  may  even  be  degraded 
forms  from  some  superior  stock.  But  they  do  undoubtedly  represent  rising 
grades  of  life,  and  are  the  clearest  compact  illustration  of  the  general  line  of 
thought  in  the  text  that  has  fallen  under  my  notice. 


250  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

more  advanced  offspring.  In  further  progress,  these  massed 
themselves  in  the  central  nerve-cord,  or  medullary  tube. 
Then  the  forward  end  of  this  cord  enlarged  itself  into 
one  grand  ganglion,  or  nerve-center,  from  which  went 
forth  the  power  to  control  the  whole  organism.  Nature 
had  come  to  a  head.  Creative  evolution  had  formed  a 
brain.  The  first  product  of  the  kind  was  not  Websterian, 
by  any  means,  but  it  contained  the  promise,  if  not  the 
potency,  of  the  noble  organ  of  the  human  mind.  Ceph- 
alization  only  needs  to  complete  what  it  has  begun.  We 
are  familiar  with  animals,  as  the  oyster,  the  sea-nettle  or 
Portuguese  man-of-war,  and  other  jelly-like  creatures,  in 
which  no  brain  proper  exists.  They  are  called  acephala, 
or  headless,  from  this  fact.  But  we  discover  in  every 
specimen  of  completely  developed  fish  or  reptile,  proof  of 
a  higher  organization  in  the  fact  that  it  has  a  true  brain. 
The  first  single  enlargement  of  the  anterior  end  of  the 
spinal-cord  is  followed  by  four  similar  growths  or  sections 
(brain  ventricles)  which  appear  as  if  this  part  of  the  cord 
had  been  constricted  by  threads  tied  around  it  at  not 
quite  regular  intervals.  These,  at  a  more  developed  stage, 
become  what  are  known  as  fore-brain,  twixt-brain,  mid- 
brain,  hind-brain,  and  after-brain.  The  hind-brain  de- 
velops into  the  cerebellum,  and  the  fore-brain  into  the 
cerebrum.  The  vast  enlargement  of  the  latter  quite  over- 
grows and  covers  up  the  other  sections  in  man,  and  gives 
that  prominence  to  the  human  forehead  which  has  been 
already  noticed.  Without  following  the  process  of  ceph- 


THE   FINAL  TERM  OF  EVOLUTION.  251 

alization  step  by  step,  it  will  suffice  to  say  that,  as  you 
ascend  along  the  scale  of  life,  with  only  a  few  seeming 
exceptions,  you  find  the  brain  growing  larger  in  propor- 
tion to  the  whole  body,  just  in  the  degree  that  the  species 
rises  in  grade  of  organization.  This  is  the  general  law. 
The  size  of  the  brain,  as  compared  with  the  body,  quality, 
or  complexity  and  fineness  of  organization,  being  also 
considered,  marks  the  rank  of  the  animal  among  the  or- 
ders of  life.  In  man  it  is  absolutely  larger  than  in  any 
other  animal,  if  you  except  the  whale  and  the  elephant. 
In  proportion  to  the  body,  it  is  many  times  larger  in  man 
than  in  these.  Bring  the  ape  into  the  comparison,  and 
the  lowest  man,  of  normal  condition,  has  a  brain  propor- 
tionally at  least  a  third  larger  than  that  of  the  highest 
anthropoid.  But  the  crowning  fact  to  be  noticed  in  this 
line  of  evolution  is  the  following :  The  average  human 
brain  is  as  large  as  it  can  be,  relatively  to  the  'muscular 
and  vital  systems,  to  give  the  highest  nervous  force  and 
mental  power.  Increase  its  proportional  size,  and  you 
weaken,  instead  of  strengthening  the  organ  of  mind.  You 
unsettle  the  balance  of  the  nervous  and  vital  systems. 
The  action  of  the  engine  will  be  too  violent  for  the  frame. 
The  average  brain  in  man  is  as  large  as  it  ought  to  be  for 
its  highest  functions.  Here,  then,  we  once  more  touch 
the  limit  of  possible  physical  progress. 

Of  course,  the  reference  here  is  to  the  average  human 
brain.  You  will  meet  with  individuals  enough  in  whom 
the  larger  growth  of  this  organ  would  not  endanger  the 


252  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

physical  equilibrium.  Nor  is  it  claimed  that  the  average 
brain  always,  or  even  in  the  majority,  attains  the  size  or 
power  which  a  vigorous  use  and  culture  might  give.  Its 
organic  or  constitutional  relation  to  the  body  is  the  point 
here  in  view.  On  the  other  hand,  examples  have  doubt- 
less fallen  under  the  observation  of  us  all,  in  which  the 
brain  was  too  large  for  the  body.  Its  excessive  activity 
exhausted  the  sources  of  its  own  supplies.  The  result  was 
a  deficiency  instead  of  an  increase  of  nervous  force  and 
mental  power.  This  fact  also  goes  to  confirm  my  main 
proposition. 

We  have  now  seen  nature  struggling  through  all  the 
long  ages  of  evolution  to  produce  the  best  possible  organ 
for  the  mind  and  spirit  of  man.  This  was  the  grand  aim 
and  goal  of  her  creative  work.  She  rose  toward  her 
object  in  every  higher  form  of  animal  life,  by  giving  it 
a  larger  brain  in  proportion  to  its  body  than  to  preceding 
forms,  and,  with  that  brain,  greater  intelligence  and  nerv- 
ous power.  To  man,  at  last,  she  has  given  as  large  a 
brain  as  the  finest  physical  organization  can  bear.  She 
has  reached  the  climax  of  her  endeavors.  Her  material 
work  can  rise  to  no  higher  product.  All  through  the 
organization  she  has  created  are  scattered  the  witnesses 
that  this  is  her  goal.  We  may  look  for  the  birth  of  no 
child  that  will  inaugurate  a  higher  type  of  physical  life. 

The  imagination  may,  no  doubt,  indulge  in  conceits  of 
improvement  on  the  finished  work  of  the  Creator.  Said 
a  Doctor  of  Divinity,  on  hearing  the  theme  of  this  lecture : 


THE  FINAL  TERM  OF  EVOLUTION.  253 

"  Oh,  no !  Evolution  is  not  yet  at  the  highest ;  it  can 
give  the  body  of  man  wings ! "  Enough  to  reply  that  the 
wings  of  man  are  in  his  Imperial  brain.  Better  there  than 
a  monstrous  attachment  pinned  to  his  shoulders.  As  his 
inventive  brain  has  already  given  him  power  to  outrun 
the  fleetest  animal  on  land,  so  it  may  yet  enable  him  to 
pass  the  bird  of  swiftest  wing  in  the  air.  Wood,  and 
metal,  and  air,  and  water,  and  fire,  are  all  wings  for  that 
wonderful  brain,  and  are  made  to  serve  him  as  if  they 
were  vital  members  of  his  body.  That  body,  I  must  be- 
lieve, is  in  type  the  ideal  of  the  Creator  realized  ;  and  as 
the  work  of  art  expresses  the  artist,  may  we  not  say  that 
the  perfect  human  form  is,  in  some  profound  sense,  the 
highest  material  manifestation  of  God  ?  The  perfect  man, 
when  he  appears,  needs  no  higher  organism  for  his  activi- 
ties. 

The  organ  of  the  soul  now  complete,  a  new  course  of 
evolution  begins — mental,  moral,  and  spiritual.  This 
must  be  traced  in  the  history  of  the  human  mind.  The 
various  races  of  men  must  be  compared.  The  psycho- 
logical phenomena  of  their  development  and  decay  (in 
those  that  have  decayed),  their  intellectual  characteristics, 
their  moral  life,  their  religious  conceptions  and  worship, 
must  be  set  side  by  side.  The  race  vitality  and  power  of 
progress  and  self -perpetuation  in  each  must  be  observed. 
The  highest  point  in  the  various  lines  of  progress  which 
each  has  been  able  to  touch  must  be  marked.  Where  the 
elements  of  human  excellence  are  combined  in  the  nearest 


254  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

approach  to  a  living  and  realized  perfection,  must,  if  pos- 
sible be  determined.  It  is  the  claim  of  Christianity  that 
its  founder  was  the  Perfect  Man.  If  this  is  a  fact,  it 
ought  to  find  support  and  confirmation  in  the  history  of 
this  higher  evolution,  viewed  in  the  light  of  those  intuitions 
of  human  perfection  given  to  the  clearest  moral  and  spir- 
itual development.  The  psychological  phenomena  of  evo- 
lution must  have  a  bearing  on  this  claim. 

The  ancient  seas  and  lands  were  thronged  with  low 
forms  of  life  that  ran  their  course  and  disappeared.  The 
early  mind  of  man  was  filled  with  equally  rude  concep- 
tions of  God  and  duty,  which  had  their  day,  and  gave 
place  to  higher  thoughts  and  feelings.  Along  the  line  of 
physical  evolution  we  see  various  races  of  creatures  branch 
off,  grow  vigorously,  attain  a  predominance  over  all  other 
forms  for  a  time,  then  decline,  or  remain  stationary,  till 
some  higher  branch  outgrows  and  overshadows  them. 
Their  vitality  can  carry  them  no  higher.  In  many  cases 
they  die  and  drop  off  altogether  from  the  tree  of  physical 
evolution.  So,  along  the  course  of  human  history,  we  see 
races  of  men  develop  their  respective  civilizations  to  a  cer- 
tain hight  of  knowledge,  morality  and  religion,  and  then 
stop  as  under  an  arrested  vitality.  There  is  not  only  no 
life  in  them  that  can  go  on  upward,  but  none  that  can 
preserve  them  from  decay  or  decline.  Many  have  died 
and  dropped  away  from  the  tree  of  human  life.  Again, 
through  all  the  ages  of  physical  evolution  ran  one  line  of 
life  whose  progress  was  ever  onward  and  upward.  It  did 


THE  FINAL   TERM  OF  EVOLUTION.  255 

not  pause  till  the  perfect  physical  man  stood  on  the  earth, 
the  epitome  and  crown  of  all  that  went  before.  Can  there 
not  be  traced,  running  through  the  history  of  the  moral 
and  spiritual  evolution  of  man,  one  line  of  progress  that 
ever  moved  onward  and  rose  higher,  until  it  touched  the 
nearest  approximation  of  human  perfection  that  has  ever 
appeared  on  earth,  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth?  If  this  can  be 
made  to  appear,  as  I  firmly  believe  it  can,  then  will  the 
religion  that  Jesus  really  taught,  find  a  scientific  basis  as 
impregnable  as  the  truth  of  evolution  itself.  And  when 
his  church  shall  cease  to  substitute  belief  in  certain  things 
about  him  for  the  simple  faith  in  God,  personal  righteous- 
ness and  good- will  to  men,  which  were  the  substance  of  his 
doctrine;  and  when  his  followers,  instead  of  contenting 
themselves  with  that  belief,  shall  heartily  accept  the  practi- 
cal ideal  they  find  in  him,  and  make  it  the  stimulus  of  their 
aspirations,  the  aim  and  endeavor  of  their  lives,  we  may 
hope,  under  that  law  of  evolution  which  accelerates  prog- 
ress with  every  higher  attainment,  that  the  earth  will  soon 
clothe  itself  in  a  new  moral  beauty,  and  humanity  will 
become  in  very  deed  the  image  and  glory  of  God. 


Appendix  A. 


Is  the  Resurrection  of  the  Body  of  Jesus  a  Fundamental  Arti- 
cle of  the  Christian  Faith  ? 

If  it  is  so  we  ought  to  know  it.  If  Christianity  is  to 
stand  or  fall  with  this  belief,  the  evidence  of  its  truth 
ought  to  leave  no  room  for  reasonable  doubt.  It  is  in- 
credible that  God  should  have  turned  aside  from  the  order 
of  nature  to  do  so  wonderful  a  thing,  and  then  should 
have  left  the  testimony  for  the  fact  so  confused  or  defect- 
ive that  honest  inquirers  in  after  ages  would  be  at  a  loss 
to  make  up  their  minds  upon  it.  Outside  the  four  Gospels 
the  resurrection  of  the  body  is  not  clearly  asserted  in  the 
New  Testament.  The  resurrection  is  everywhere,  but 
spiritual.  Paul  declares  for  a  spiritual  body  :  but  all  he 
says  on  the  subject,  taken  together,  seems  to  discredit, 
rather  than  favor  the  idea  of  a  physical  resurrection.  Put 
the  four  Evangelists,  therefore,  on  the  stand.  Cross- 
question  them  fairly.  Sift  the  testimony  given  under 
their  names.  See  whether  there  is  that  substantial  agree- 
ment and  air  of  truthfulness  that  leaves  no  ground  of 
reasonable  doubt  in  the  mind  of  an  impartial  judge. 

Turn  to  the  last  chapters  of  Matthew  (xxviii),  Mark 
(xvi),  Luke  (xxiv),  and  John  (xx*),  and  we  have  the 
whole  testimony  before  us.  A  careful  comparison  of 
these  discovers  substantial  agreement  in  the  following 
particulars : 

*  The  twenty-first  chapter  of  John  is  not  reliable,  as  it  is  (in  the  words  of 
Olshausen)  "beyond  question  a  later  addition  to  the  completed  work." 


APPENDIX  A.  257 

1.  The  persons  first  at  the  sepulchre — the  women  of 

Galilee. 

2.  The  time  of  their  coming — early  morning. 

3.  Their  object — to  embalm  the  body. 

4.  The  sealed  stone  rolled  from  the  door  of  the  sepul- 

chre. 

5.  The  absence  of  the  body  of  Jesus. 

6.  An  angelic    appearance    announcing  his  resurrec- 

tion. 

7.  The  women  (John  mentioning  only  Mary  Magda- 

lene), first  to  report  these  facts  to  the  Apostles. 

8.  The  appearance  of  Jesus  himself  to  the  disciples, 

and  conversing  with  them  on  different  occasions. 

Mark  and  John  agree  that  his  first  appearance  after  the 
resurrection  was  to  Mary  Magdalene.  Matthew  says  it 
was  to  the  women  ;  Luke  is  silent  on  this  point.  Luke 
and  John  agree  that  Peter  ran  to  the  sepulchre,  after 
hearing  the  report  of  the  women.  John  adds  that  "  the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved  "  was  with  Peter,  outran  him, 
and  was  before  him  at  the  sepulchre.  Matthew  and 
Mark  grre  silent  here.  Matthew  and  Mark  say  the  angel 
directed  the  women  to  tell  the  disciples  that  Jesus  would 
meet  them  in  Galilee.  Matthew  states  that  Jesus  also- 
gave  them  the  same  message.  Luke  and  John  are  silent 
upon  this  commission  to  the  women,  but  both  report  that 
Jesus  himself  met  the  disciples  the  same  evening  in  Jeru- 
salem. Matthew  says  nothing  of  this  meeting  in  Jerusa- 
lem, but  reports  a  meeting  in  Galilee.  Mark  mentions  a 
meeting,  but  does  not  name  the  place.  Matthew  and 
Mark  speak  of  but  one  angel  at  the  tomb  ;  Luke  and  John 
of  two.  The  first  three  Evangelists  place  the  angelic  ap- 
pearance at  the  first  approach  of  the  women  to  the  sepul- 
chre. John  has  it  that  the  first  appearance  of  the  angels, 
and  also  of  Jesus,  was  to  Mary  after  the  disciples  had 


258  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

examined  the  sepulchre  and  gone  away  home.  Luke  and 
John  state  that  Jesus  challenged  his  disciples  to  examine 
his  hands  and  feet,  and  called  for  food,  and  ate  before 
them,  in  proof  that  it  was  hfs  real  body  ( "flesh  and  bones  ") 
that  was  risen.  Matthew  and  Mark  are  silent  respecting 
these  facts.  Luke  and  John  assert  the  sudden  appear- 
ance of  Jesus  among  the  disciples  in  a  closed  room,  as  if 
he  were  a  bodiless  spirit,  unconscious  of  impediment  in 
doors  and  walls.  Luke  also  narrates  how  he  walked  and 
conversed  with  two  of  their  number  without  being  recog- 
nized, and  then  suddenly  vanished  out  of  their  sight. 
Matthew  naively  confesses  that  when  the  disciples  met 
Jesus,  according  to  his  appointment,  in  Galilee,  and  "  wor- 
shiped him,"  "some  doubted,"  showing  that  after  all  his 
striking  appearances  at  Jerusalem,  some  of  the  immediate 
and  friendly  witnesses  were  not  convinced.  Finally,  Luke 
represents  the  ascension  into  heaven  as  taking  place  visi- 
bly before  the  eyes  of  the  disciples,  and  even  specifies  the 
place.  Matthew  and  John  say  nothing  of  this*  event. 
Mark  (if  we  are  to  accept  the  last  twelve  verses  of  his 
Gospel  as  genuine,  notwithstanding  their  absence  from 
the  oldest  manuscripts),  contents  himself  with  saying} 
"  So,  then,  after  the  Lord  had  spoken  to  them,  he  was 
received  up  into  heaven,  and  sat  on  the  right  hand  of 
God." 

Now,  suppose  a  court  of  inquiry  into  this  case— judges 
without  bias — this  testimony  heard  for  the  first  time. 
Let  the  previous  accounts  of  the  crucifixion  be  added. 
Also  let  the  subsequent  conduct  of  the  witnesses  be  sub- 
mitted for  full  consideration — the  sudden  return  of  con- 
fidence to  these  simple-njinded  disciples,  stricken  with 
despair  at  the  execution  of  the  one  whom  they  had  trusted 


APPENDIX  A.  25 £> 

to  be  their  deliverer  and  king,  and  their  life-long  devotion, 
many  of  them  even  in  the  martyr's  death,  to  bearing 
witness  to  him  as  risen  from  the  dead  to  be  the  Savior  of 
the  world.  Reinforce  the  evidence  by  whatever  support 
is  fairly  due  from  the  effect  of  their  testimony  upon  their 
own  time,  and  its  later  influence  in  history.  The  court 
is  to  decide  whether  we  must  conclude  from  this  combined 
evidence  that  the  body  of  Jesus  was  raised  from  the  dead. 

First,  the  narratives  of  the  crucifixion  are  taken  up. 
It  strikes  the  judges  as  singular  that  one  in  the  vigor  of 
young  and  healthy  manhood  should  have  died  so  soon 
after  he  was  nailed  to  the  cross,  exciting  the  wonder  of 
Pilate,  who  "  marveled  if  he  were  already  dead  "  (Mark 
xv,  44)  ;  and  then  that  it  should  be  explicitly  stated  that 
the  legs  of  the  two  thieves  who  were  crucified  with  him 
were  broken  to  assure  their  death,  but  that  "  not  a  bone 
of  him  was  broken  ;"  and  his  body,  without  certain  evi- 
dence of  a  mortal  wound  in  it,  was  delivered  to  his  friends,, 
taken  down  from  the  cross,  and  laid  in  one  of  their  private 
sepulchres.  On  the  other  hand,  the  judges  reflect  that 
the  Roman  soldier,  as  an  executioner,  was  no  sentimental- 
ist, and  made  no  half-way  work  of  it,  especially  as  his 
own  life  was  the  forfeit  if  his  prisoner  escaped.  It  was 
not  likely  that  the  spear  thrust  in  the  side  would  stop 
short  of  a  vital  point — the  force  of  this  reason  being  some- 
what weakened,  however,  by  the  admission  of  one  of  the 
witnesses  that  the  soldiers,  for  "large  money,"  took  this 
very  risk  by  falsely  reporting  against  themselves  a  capital 
delinquency — sleeping  on  watch  at  the  sepulchre.  So  far 
the  case  looks  dubious. 

Next,  the  court  turns  to  the  direct  testimony.  Here 
they  note  the  points  of  agreement  above  stated,  and  then 


260  A  REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

take  under  review  the  apparent  discrepancies  and  singular 
omissions  of  some  of  the  narrators — two  angels  named 
by  some,  only  one  by  others  ;  angels  sent  to  announce  his 
resurrection,  then  Jesus  immediately  appearing  to  an- 
nounce himself  (one  or  the  other  an  apparently  superfluous 
miracle) ;  his  first  appearance  to  Mary  according  to  one, 
to  "the  women,"  according  to  three  ;  after  the  disciples 
had  found  the  tomb  empty  and  had  departed,  according 
to  one,  before,  according  to  three  ;  angels  and  Jesus  send- 
ing word  to  his  disciples  to  meet  him  in  Galilee,  then  Jesus 
himself  meeting  them  the  same  evening  in  Jerusalem  ; 
two  of  the  witnesses  omitting  to  mention  this  meeting  ; 
two  making  no  record  of  the  amazing  act  of  his  eating 
and  drinking  before  the  disciples ;  one  acknowledging 
that  there  was  doubt  among  the  disciples  themselves  after 
all  these  proofs  had  been  witnessed  at  Jerusalem  ;  only 
one  intimating  that  he  ever  returned  to  Jerusalem  after 
going  into  Galilee  ;  only  thiione  relating  the  astonishing 
fact  of  his  leading  his  disciples  out  as  far  as  Bethany,  near 
the  Holy  City,  and  there  being  lifted  up  from  the  earth 
before  their  eyes,  and  disappearing  in  the  clouds  of  heaven ; 
the  others  strangely  omitting  to  mention  this  final  wonder, 
and  leaving  the  impression  that  his  last  appearance  was 
in  Galilee. 

The  court  discovers,  upon  further  investigation,  that 
several  years  almost  certainly  elapsed  after  the  date  of 
these  events  before  they  were  committed  to  writing  ;  that 
in  the  interval  they  were  probably  in  the  form  of  oral 
traditions,  passing  from  mouth  to  mouth  ;  that  the  ac- 
counts of  them  do  not  appear  in  history,  in  their  present 
shape,  until  three  or  four  generations  had  passed  away  ; 
that  there  was  abundant  opportunity,  and  no  lack  of  dis- 


APPENDIX   A.  261 

position,  to  introduce  a  marvelous  and  legendary  element 
into  them ;  that  considerable  interpolations  and  additions 
to  the  original  narratives  are  admitted  by  all  competent 
scholars  ;  and  hence  that  it  would  have  been  nothing  new 
had  simple  facts  grown  into  startling  rumors,  and  these, 
again,  into  stupendous  miracles.  They  can  not  help  ask- 
ing, also,  if  the  body  of  Jesus  was  reanimated,  and  moved 
among  men,  impressing  the  physical  senses,  after  his  burial, 
why  were  none  but  his  friends  permitted  the  sight  ? 

They  next  come  to  the  subsequent  conduct  of  the  wit- 
nesses. Here  the  evidence  is  irresistible  that  something 
occurred  soon  after  the  crucifixion  that  strangely  revived 
the  courage  of  the  desponding  friends  of  Jesus,  and  in- 
spired in  them  the  life-long  conviction  that  their  beloved 
Master  was  alive  again.  Men  do  not  suffer  the  loss  of 
all  things,  and  cheerfully  meet  death  itself  for  what  they 
know  to  be  a  lie.  Was  it  the  body,  startling  the  senses  ? 
Was  it  the  Spirit,  revealed  to  an  opened  spiritual  vision, 
as  a  certain  weird  peculiarity  of  impression  on  the  disci- 
ples, discernible  in  the  narrative,  would  suggest  ?  Or  was 
it  the  illusion  of  excited  imaginations,  reported  as  fact, 
and  gaining  currency  at  the  time,  and  large  additions  in 
after  years  ?  The  history  of  human  experience  allows  a 
wide  margin  of  alternative  supposition  here.  The  natural 
body  is  not  the  one  to  which  the  mind  feels  driven. 

Finally,  the  court  considers  the  impression  these  wit- 
nesses made  on  their  own  time  and  on  after  ages.  Was 
the  fact  of  the  physical  resurrection  an  essential  element 
in  the  power  of  their  testimony  of  Jesus  ?  Whatever 
they  may  have  thought  of  his  body,  they  believed  that 
he  was  alive  again.  Of  this  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
They  believed  that  he  lived  as  the  head  of  a  universal 


262  A -REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

spiritual  kingdom.  This  conviction  was  a  flame  of  zeal 
in  them.  It  gave  a  burning  earnestness  to  their  message. 
Then  the  universal  mind  of  their  age  stood  in  an  attitude 
of  peculiar  preparation  to  hear  what  they  had  to  say  on 
the  resurrection  or  a  life  to  come — the  Jews  divided  into 
two  parties,  the  one  affirming,  the  other  denying  the  doc- 
trine, raising  a  blinding  dust  of  controversy  between  them ; 
the  Romans  who  thought  at  all  of  such  matters,  nearly 
all  Epicureans  or  Stoics  ;  the  former  with  their  maxim  of 
good  cheer,  ''Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die, 
and  that  is  the  last  of  us ;"  the  latter  gravely  shaking 
their  heads  and  saying,  "  We  know  nothing  of  the  mor- 
row ;  the- wise  man  will  not  trouble  himself  about  that 
which  he  can  not  know."  Imagine  a  preacher  of  the 
resurrection  as  a  demonstrated  fact,  aflame  with  zeal, 
coming  into  a  community  whose  minds  are  in  this  posi- 
tion. His  words  are  upon  the  burning  question  of  the 
time.  Men  are  inclined  to  believe  with  him.  They  love 
the  hope  of  another  life.  He  easily  gains  attention.  And 
then  if  he  is  attended  with  the  reputation  of  some  myste- 
rious power  over  the  forces  of  nature,  such  as  has  almost 
invariably  been  credited  to  the  founders  of  new  religions, 
he  can  not  fail  to  soon  have  a  multitude  with  him.  The 
judges  note  further  the  purity  and  elevation  of  the  doc- 
trine of  life  these  .witnesses  bore  with  them,  its  intrinsic 
truth,  its  adaptation  to  man's  moral  and  religious  nature, 
its  power  to  kindle  noble  aspirations,  strengthen  the  weak 
and  comfort  the  sorrowing.  They  can  not  believe  that 
the  fate  of  such  truth  depends  upon  the  question  as  to 
what  became  of  the  body  of  the  great  Teacher  who  first 
promulgated  it.  Its  inherent  quality  accounts  for  its 
power  in  history,  not  an  astounding  miracle  connected 
with  its  revelation. 


APPENDIX  A.  263 

But  the  advocates  of  the  affirmative  urge  that  a  special 
divine  influence  inspired  the  utterance  of  the  testimony, 
and  preserved  its  record  from  all  admixture  of  error. 
This  the  court  sets  aside  as  mere  assumption.  The  facts 
in  the  case  forbid  its  admission.  The  evidence  must  stand 
on  its  own  self-consistency  and  intrinsic  reasonableness. 
It  must  submit  to  the  scales  which  decide  the  value  of  all 
historic  testimony.  So  weighed,  the  court  could  hardly 
fail  of  unanimity  in  the  decision  "not  proven."  And  if 
appeal  be  taken  from  this  judgment,  it  can  hardly  be  de- 
nied that  the  competent  scholarship  and  profoundest  piety 
of  Christendom  show  themselves  increasingly  disposed  to 
affirm  it. 

What  is  the  spiritual  value  of  this  article  of  belief  ? 
The  resurrection  it  affirms  is  like  no  other.  Jesus  saw  no 
corruption.  Our  bodies  must  return  to  dust.  Their  lit- 
eral resurrection  is  an  almost  abandoned  superstition,  even 
in  the  church.  Who  now  bases  his  hope  of  immortality 
on  the  resurrection  of  the  body  of  Jesus  ?  How  few  ever 
connect  the  two  in  their  thoughts.  Who  that  believes  in 
the  life  to  come  at  all  would  doubt  that  Jesus  still  lives, 
and  that  we  shall  all  live  on  after  our  bodies  crumble,  if 
it  could  be  demonstrated  to-day  that  his  body  was  never 
requickened  ?  That  the  belief  is  not  vital  to  the  spiritual 
life  is  demonstrated.  Many  an  intelligent  and  earnest 
Christian  does  not  believe  it.  The  insistence  that  piety 
can  not  thrive  without  it  springs  from  that  gross  way  of 
thinking,  which  imagines  that  the  divine  life  in  the  soul 
can  not  be  properly  nurtured  without  dazing  the  senses 
with  wonders. 

It  is  deprecatingly  objected  that  if  we  pluck  Christian- 
ity from  the  soil  of  historic  fact  from  which  it  sprung,  it 


264  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

will  wither  and  die.  That  is  true.  The  Christian  evolu- 
tionist readily  assents.  But  what  is  fact;  what  fiction 
and  legend  ?  We  must  discriminate.  Then,  further,  in 
the  history  established  beyond  reasonable  question,  we 
must  distinguish,  as  we  easily  may,  the  facts  essential  to 
the  life  of  Christianity  from  the  merely  incidental.  That 
Jesus  lived;  that  he  led  a  pure  and  beneficent  life,  gave 
forth  truth  and  conceptions  of  duty  and  character  that 
compelled  assent  by  their  own  divine  light  ;  that  he  died 
a  martyr  death,  sealing  his  fidelity  to  the  truth  and  his 
love  to  men  with  his  blood — these  are  essential.  Truth 
throbs  with  life  and  power  in  them.  These  things  are 
what  Jesus  himself  did.  What  was  done  to  him — to  his 
body  after  he  was  dead — that  is  quite  another  matter. 
His  truth  can  not  get  its  life  from  that. 

Let  no  one  insist  that  others  deny  the  bodily  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus.  That  is  not  the  point  here.  The  dogma- 
tism of  denial  is  as  bad  as  the  dogmatism  of  assertion. 
If  any  find  reason  and  comfort  in  believing  it,  let  them 
believe  it.  The  point  here  is  that  its  believers  shall  not 
insist  that  others  believe  and  affirm  it,  on  peril  of  being 
unchristianized.  I  protest  against  committing  the  credit 
and  very  life  of  Christianity  to  fact  or  theory  resting 
upon  evidence  which  is  not,  and  can  not  be  made,  conclu- 
sive— a  folly  of  which  its  friends  have  been  too  often  guilty. 
Many  a  candid  skeptic  would  willingly  accept  the  physi- 
cal resurrection,  but  can  not  see  the  proof  to  be  satisfactory. 
Since  experience  in  the  hearts  of  many  devoted  Christians 
demonstrates  it  to  be  non-essential,  let  it  be  placed  among 
the  non-essentials ;  and  I  am  persuaded  that  instead  of 
losing  a  vital  aid  to  faith,  it  will  be  found  that  an  impedi- 
ment to  the  progress  and  spiritual  life  of  Christianity  has 
been  removed. 


Appendix  B. — Cavour's  Prophecy. 


Can  Christianity  become  the  Universal  Religion? 

The  prophecy  of  Count  Cavour,  the  free  thinking  Ital- 
ian statesman,  strikingly  expresses  a  vague  anticipation 
in  many  thoughtful  minds,  who  long  for  some  power  to 
give  us  a  purer  world.  He  was  dying,  and  well  knew 
that  he  had  but  few  days  to  live.  This  prediction  was 
uttered  in  his  last  conversation  with  Col.  de  la  Motte 
Baudin,  his  biographer,  who  gives  it  as  follows: 

Said  Col.  Baudin :  If  you  knew  how  your  country  will 
miss  you,  you  could  hardly  be  so  resigned  to  your  fate. 
Tell  me,  is  Hamlet's  alternative  really  a  matter  of  indif- 
ference to  you  ? 

Cavour  replied:  Italy  has  passed  the  dangerous  ford,, 
and  I  dare  say  will  be  able  to  muddle  along  on  terra- 
firma  without  me.  But  as  for  myself,  speaking  from  a- 
spectator's,  rather  than  an  actor's  standpoint,  I  do  not 
deny  that  I  regret  my  exit  from  the  play-house.  I  have 
witnessed  some  pretty  lively  performances  in  my  time; 
but  I  shall  miss  the  grand  sensation  piece.  Before  the 
curtain  of  the  century  drops,  we  shall  have  a  new 
religion. 

At  the  rate  our  English-speaking  fellow  creatures  are 
manufacturing  that  article,  we  shall  have  a  pretty  good 
stock  on  hand  by  that  time,  suggested  his  friend. 

No,  no,  protested  the  Count;  I  do  not  mean  a  new  hy- 
pocrisy; I  mean  a  new  religion. 


266  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

Don't  you  tMnk  that  the  Protestants  are  in  earnest  ? 

Yes,  in  their  protest  against  Catholicism ;  so  much,  in- 
deed, that  they  have  protested  it  out  of  the  better  portion 
of  the  world.  But  what  they  have  substituted  for  it  is 
purely  negative;  born  of  schism,  and  prolific  of  new 
schism ;  skepticism  the  very  essence  and  soul  of  it. 

But  will  not  that  skepticism  prevent  the  growth  of 
what  you  call  a  new  religion? 

Indeed  not.  Rotten  trees  make  excellent  manure  for 
new  trees,  you  know:  our  old  creed  has  become  a  heap 
of  vegetable  mold — the  very  soil  for  a  new  creed  to  ger- 
minate in.  On  naked  rationalism  no  such  plant  can 
grow ;  but  the  world  is  as  far  from  being  rational  as  from 
being — 

Being  what  ? 

Trinitarian,  if  I  must  speak  it  out — of  course  I  mean 
the  living  portion  of  the  world,  not  the  big  petrified  trees 
in  Asia. 

But  among  our  own  variety  of  trees  there  are  some 
pretty  good  sized  ones. 

Yes,  in  circumference ;  but  that  is  no  criterion  for  their 
staying  power ;  a  hollow  oak  can  often  boast  of  an  im- 
posing girth.  Of  course  the  collapse  of  the  old  shell  will 
not  come  off  without  a  crash,  both  audible  and  sensible 
to  the  ends  of  the  world.  It  will  be  catastrophic,  spec- 
tacular, and  exciting — worth  while  seeing  in  short;  and 
that's  what  makes  me  loth  to  leave.  It's  hard  to  leave 
on  the  very  eve  of  a  phenomenon  that  occurs  only  once 
»n  two  thousand  years  or  so. 

And  so  you  think  a  few  more  years  would  have  been 
jufficient  to  — 

To  witness  it  ?     Yes,  sir.     The  old  shell  is  very  hollow. 


APPENDIX    B.  267 

But  infidels  have  battered  it  in  vain  ever  so  long. 

For  good  reasons.  An  old  creed  can  never  be  super- 
seded by  infidelity,  which  means  indifference  upon  the 
whole,  but  by  a  new  creed. 

It  can ;  but  will  it  ?     And  who  knows  when  ? 

During  the  next  thirty  or  forty  years.  The  decay  of 
an  old  faith  always  coincides  with  the  advent  of  a  new 
one. 

What  makes  you  think  so  ? 

The  history  of  religions. 

Here  the  subject  was  dropped,  and  was  never  resumed. 
What  the  statesman-prophet  had  in  mind  beyond  some 
great  impending  change  in  religious  ideas,  we  can  only 
conj  ecture.  But  the  following  conversation,  to  which  this 
prophecy  gave  rise,  may  be  worth  reporting.  It  took 
place  between  one  who  calls  himself  a  Rational  Christian 
and  a  High  Churchman,  and  fitly  represents  the  conflict- 
ing thoughts  that  would  be  in  many  minds  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  this  subject. 

Churchman. — A  new  religion !  What  would  be  nec- 
essary in  the  case  to  win  faith  and  give  the  new  religion 
power  ? 

Rationalist. — To  speak  the  truth  of  God  and  man, 
and  all  human  duty,  more  clearly  than  it  has  ever  been 
spoken,  if  that  be  possible. 

C. — Truth  alone  would  not  do.  It  must  be  backed  by 
authority ;  and  the  authority  must  bear  the  seal  of  mira- 
cles. No  religion  could  make  way  in  the  world  without 
the  sanction  of  miracles.  Without  them  who  would 
know  whether  he  was  to  accept  or  reject? 

R. — Who  would  know  any  better  with  them?     Sup- 


268  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

pose  miracles  in  any  number,  and  ever  so  startling — the 
sky  filled  with  unwonted  illuminations,  and  choirs  of  sing- 
ing angels  every  night,  and  the  world  set  agape  by  won- 
ders of  healing,  and  even  resurrections  from  the  dead 
every  day — what  then?  The  senses  are  smitten  with 
strange  phenomena !  That  is  about  all.  The  truth  is  not 
revealed  in  such  phenomena — cannot  be.  Look  upon 
them  forever,  and  you  would  know  no  more  of  what  es- 
sential spiritual  truth  is — truth  of  human  duty  and 
love — or  of  what  the  spiritual  world  is,  than  if  you  had 
been  dreaming.  They  are  of  the  senses,  not  of  the  spirit. 
They  belong  wholly  to  the  sense  sphere  of  experience, 
and  cannot  lift  one  a  line  above  that  sphere.  The  at- 
tempt to  reveal  spiritual  truth  through  them  would  be 
like  singing  songs  to  the  deaf  or  painting  brilliant  colors 
for  the  blind.  The  medium  used  does  not  touch  the  right 
sense. 

C. — But  a  prophet  might  surely  come,  certified  of 
heaven  by  these  wonders,  which  no  man  can  do,  and 
speak  to  us  with  a  tongue  of  flame  that  would  compel 
us  to  confess,  "Never  man  spake  like  this  man? " 

R. — Very  well.  But  could  the  prophet's  truth  be  more 
than  truth?  Miracles  might  attract  a  brief  attention  to 
his  words  that  would  not  otherwise  be  accorded;  but  it 
would  be  at  the  imminent  danger  (as  seems  to  have  been 
the  case  with  Jesus)  that  his  miracles  would  gain  the  chief 
attention,  and  his  truth  would  get  the  go-by.  As  mira- 
cles have  no  power  to  reveal  truth,  or  make  truth  more 
true,  so  they  have  none  to  make  men  love  the  truth. 
That  must,  at  last,  be  received  and  loved  and  done,  if  at 
all,  for  what  it  is,  and  not  for  its  incidents.  It  must  be 
seen  by  the  soul,  not  by  the  eye  of  sense.  It  must  be  seen 


APPENDIX  B.  269 

by  its  own  light,  not  by  some  poor,  smoking  torch  of  mir- 
acle or  material  manifestation,  as  if  that  were  a  better 
light  to  make  it  clear.  The  sun  does  not  need  a  candle, 
or  even  a  lightning-flash,  to  make  it  visible. 

C. — But  if  some  one  should  come  from  the  spirit- world 
and  tell  us  from  experience  of  its  life  and  conditions,  would 
we  not  have  a  reliable  revelation? 

R. — How  could  you  know  that  the  words  of  such  a 
ghost  were  true? 

C. — Why,  miracles  might  surely  attest  them  from  God. 

R. — But  suppose  they  should  be  satanic  miracles,  as  the 
Bible  itself  suggests  they  might  be,  and  your  ghost  only 
an  agent  of  Satan? 

C. — Oh,  the  quality  of  the  message  would  settle  that. 
Satan  would  not  wprk  a  miracle  in  support  of  divine 
truth.  He  would  be  undermining  his  own  power;  divided 
against  himself,  pulling  down  his  own  house.  He  is  too- 
sharp  for  that. 

R. — The  quality  of  the  message !  So,  then,  after  all  it 
is  the  truth  that  approves  the  miracle,  and  not  the  mira- 
cle the  truth ;  and  you  must  still  fall  back  on  your  reason 
to  determine  whether  the  miracle  is  in  the  interest  of 
truth  or  of  deviltry? — that  "poor  human  reason,"  against, 
trusting  in  which  you  are  so  often  warned !  Why  not, 
then,  let  the  truth  certificate  the  messenger  and  itself 
without  the  miracle,  and  relieve  it  from  the  burden  of 
carrying  the  miracle  also?  Why  not  receive  the  truth, 
the  only  valuable  thing  in  the  case,  for  its  own  sake,  and 
let  the  poor  miracle  go  its  way? 

C. — But  is  not  Christianity  founded  on  miracles?  Did 
not  Jesus  work  miracles  in  attestation  of  his  divine  au- 
thority to  speak  as  the  Word  of  God? 


270  A   EEASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

R. — Suppose  he  did.  He  did  not  seem  to  make  much 
of  his  miracles  as  a  support  of  his  truth ;  he  charged  it 
as  a  reproach  and  a  wickedness  on  his  hearers  that  they 
would  not  believe  without  them.  But  grant,  for  the  time, 
that  he  wrought  them  with  the  intent  assumed,  we  cannot 
see  his  miracles ;  we  cannot  talk  with  those  who  witnessed 
them.  In  the  present  state  of  the  evidence,  we  cannot 
put  the  truth  of  the  reports  of  them  beyond  all  doubt ; 
they  are  not  available  to  us.  Do  we  need  them  ?  Do  the 
words  reported  to  us  as  the  sayings  of  Jesus  need  them  ? 
Could  they  add  one  grain  to  the  evidence  of  the  truth  of 
those  words?  Do  not  his  teachings  shine  with  their  own 
light?  Penetrate  their  simple  substance,  strip  them  of  all 
the  foreign  additions  and  false  assumptions  by  which  they 
have  been  obscured,  set  them  clear  of  the  poor  substitutes 
of  ritual  and  dogma  which  men  have  put  in  their  place, 
see  just  what  the  religion  they  embody  is,  and  then  say  if 
you  can  conceive  the  possibility  that  an  angel  from  heav- 
en, with  ten  thousand  new  miracles,  could  bring  us  truths 
more  certainly  true  or  more  grandly  comprehensive  of 
the  whole  range  of  human  duty  and  religious  faith?  Let 
us  stop  here  and  see  if  we  can  grasp  something  of  their 
breadth  and  completeness.  Look  at  his  teachings  in  the 
threefold  aspect  which  sweeps  the  whole  arc  of  human 
life  and  experience — man's  relation  and  duty  to  God,  to 
his  fellow-men,  and  to  himself. 

First,  God  and  man.  God  is  a  Spirit,  to  be  worshiped 
in  spirit  and  in  truth — under  no  limits  of  time  or  place ; 
not  on  the  mountain  of  Samaria,  nor  at  Jerusalem ;  no 
temple  needed,  no  altar,  no  priest,  no  sacrifice,  no  rite  or 
ceremony.  The  spirit  of  worship  finds  God  at  once  and 
every  where — on  holy  day  or  holiday,  in  joy  or  in  grief, 


APPENDIX  B.    -.,'•  271 

at  home  or  abroad,  in  temple  or  market,  in  society  or  in 
solitude.  The  conditions  are  all  present ;  let  the  worship 
be  rendered.  God  the  Spirit,  and  man  the  worshiper  in 
spirit,  are  related  as  father  and  child.  This  is  the  best 
human  expression  of  what  they  are  to  each  other.  Man, 
the  child,  owes  love,  trust,  and  obedience ;  God,  the  father, 
responds  with  cherishing  influence,  tenderness,  helpfulness, 
parental  love.  And  when  the  spirit  of  man  rises  to  its 
full  privilege  of  love  and  trust,  God  the  Spirit  dwelleth  in 
him  and  he  in  God,  blending  the  life  of  the  two  into  a 
unity  in  which  the  soul  can  truthfully  say,  "  I  and  my 
Father  are  one."  Notice  here  the  truth  and  all  the  con- 
ditions of  a  universal  religion.  And  can  you  conceive  of 
a  more  vital,  spiritually  quickening  and  life-giving  rela- 
tion of  man  to  God? 

Secondly,  man  to  his  fellow-men.  Good  will,  universal 
love — these  are  the  words  of  Jesus  here.  Let  there  be 
true  home-affection  for  every  member  of  the  family  of  the 
one  Father — sympathy,  forbearance,  forgiveness,  helpful- 
ness, good  for  evil,  love  to  enemies,  mercy  that  turns  away 
from  no  depth  of  unworthiness,  sparing  no  painful  self- 
sacrifice  to  lift  up  the  fallen  and  bear  them  forward  on 
the  heart  of  a  Godlike  love  to  a  conquering  strength  over 
evil,  "  that  ye  may  be  the  children  of  your  Father  who  is 
in  heaven;  for  he  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and 
on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  un- 
just." In  short,  man  is  to  make  his  idea  of  God's  love 
and  goodness  the  ideal  of  his  own  conduct  and  spirit 
toward  his  fellow-men.  Can  heaven  send  or  angel  bring 
a  better  law  or  a  diviner  spirit  than  this? 

Thirdly,  man  to  himself.  Let  him  be  inwardly  true  to 
his  own  highest  thought.  That  is  all.  The  anger  that 


272  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

would  kill  is  murder ;  smother  it.  The  lust  that  would 
sin  is  the  sin ;  quench  it.  Let  the  thought  be  as  the  deed 
ought  to  be.  Sternly  exact  this  of  your  own  secret  self. 
The  love  of  God  the  light  by  which  you  see,  your  own 
conscience  the  eye  that  sees — be  the  truth  and  purity  and 
goodness  that  shape  themselves  to  your  inward  vision. 

Now,  take  the  measure  of  this  threefold  law  of  duty, 
and  then  set  yourself  the  task  to  devise  or  suggest  im- 
provement. Tell  us  of  a  better  religion,  if  you  can — one 
that  gives  a  higher  idea  of  God  or  brings  man  nearer  to 
Him.  Tell  us  of  a  law  of  life  that  will  make  a  better 
kind  of  man.  I  think  you  will  throw  up  the  task  in  de- 
spair. Criticism  searches  in  vain  for  a  flaw ;  reason  falls 
baffled  in  the  effort  to  imagine  truth  more  certainly  true, 
or  more  complete  as  a  law  for  conduct  and  spirit.  We 
laugh  at  the  folly  that  asks  a  miracle  to  certify  such 
truth.  It  is  asking  a  beggar  to  go  surety  for  the  word  of 
a  king;  it  is  asking  a  candle  to  light  the  path  of  the  sun. 
The  truth  stands  in  its  own  worth ;  it  shames  the  miracle 
by  its  own  manifest  divinity. 

C. — Quite  a  sermon,  with  the  three  traditional  heads 
and  application  to  boot !  But  have  you  not  lost  sight  of 
one  fact?  The  common  people  must  have  authority. 

R. — Yes,  as  citizens  and  for  their  civil  conduct ;  never 
for  their  religion. 

C. — How  ?  Would  you  never  have  authority  enforce 
religious  truth,  not  even  on  children? 

R. — Never. 

C._ Why  not? 

R. — Because  when  it  does  so  it  puts  truth  on  a  level 
with  error. 

C.— How  so? 


APPENDIX  B.  273 

R. — Let  authority  enforce  the  truth  on  belief,  and  men 
will  receive  it;  but  why?  Not  because  it  is  truth,  but 
because  authority  commands.  Enforce  error  by  author- 
ity, and  men  receive  it  (as  they  have  done  in  what  innu- 
merable instances!)  and  why?  For  the  same  reason  as 
before:  authority  compels.  The  same  motive  in  either 
case.  Truth  and  falsehood  are  made  equal. 

C. — Sharp  logic !  You  are  good  at  making  out  that 
white  is  black. 

R. — That  is  the  business  of  authority  when  it  enforces 
belief.  Enforce  a  religion,  and  you  make  a  hypocrisy. 

C. — But  how  would  you  secure  the  reception  of  the 
perfect  truth  of  Christ? 

R.— Teach  it. 

C. — What  would  be  the  penalty  of  rejecting? 

R. — Being  without  the  truth. 

C. — Is  that  all?     What  would  the  rejecter  care? 

R. — All?  You  remind  me  of  the  orthodox  hearer  who 
came  out  from  a  liberal  lecture,  exclaiming,  "  Why,  he 
left  us  nothing  but  God  to  believe  in ! "  Nothing  but 
God!  No  penalty  but  to  be  without  the  truth!  You 
seem  to  think  that  wouldn't  be  much. 

C. — No,  I  do  not  mean  that.  But  your  fine  rational- 
istic abstractions  do  not  touch  the  multitude.  I  do  not 
believe  they  ever  will.  You  must  use  some  reasons  that 
they  can  be  made  to  feel. 

R. — Take  as  much  pains  to  teach  them  what  is  involved 
in  being  without  the  truth  as  have  been  taken  to  teach 
them  the  fictions  of  theology,  and  the  motives  will  carry 
far  more  weight  with  them  than  your  fictitious  hell,  which 
every  school-girl  of  respectable  intelligence  has  learned  to 
laugh  at. 


274  A   REASONABLE   CHRISTIANITY. 

C. — But  the  popular  imagination  must  be  gratified.  It 
must  have  its  scenery  of  the  spirit-world.  Why  should 
not  angels  or  spirits  from  God,  who  can  speak  from  expe- 
rience, supply  the  want  in  the  words  of  a  true  revelation? 

R. — Well,  suppose  an  angel  from  heaven  to  come  and 
describe  that  scenery,  and  tell  the  ways  of  that  world, 
what  more  would  that  scenery  be  in  our  thought  and 
imagination  than  another  world  of  matter — matter  great- 
ly attenuated,  no  doubt,  sublimated,  etherealized,  phan- 
omized;  yet,  after  all,  only  matter  with  its  phenomena 
-appealing  to  the  senses,  so  only  another  world  of  sense? 
What  more  could  the  ways  of  those  inhabitants  be  to  us 
than  another  society  of  earth,  moving  among  themselves, 
and  communing  of  those  interests  that  make  up  the  life 
of  earth?  It  is  the  dream  of  many  that  if  we  could  only 
walk  in  the  visible  and  audible  presence  of  spirits  from 
the  other  world  every  day,  we  might  rejoice  in  overwhelm- 
ing revelations  of  truth.  But  are  we  not  walking  in  the 
visible  and  audible  presence  of  spirits  every  day  ?  Is  not 
every  one  who  moves  at  our  side  a  spirit?  And  are  not 
some  of  these  even  now  uttering  and  writing  thoughts 
and  truths  of  the  real  spiritual  life  that  are  so  far  beyond 
our  capacity  to  receive,  the  powers  of  comprehension  to 
which  we  have  grown,  that  we  only  stare  in  blank  va- 
cancy and  wonder  what  they  mean?  What  better  would 
oe  a  ghost,  or  an  army  of  ghosts?  Why  should  spirits 
come  to  waste  on  us  words  of  the  third  heaven  when  we 
have  not  learned  the  alphabet  of  the  first  ?  Jesus  and 
Paul  could  not  speak  their  highest  truths  of  the  spiritual 
life  because  their  mole-blind  hearers  had  no  vision  open  to 
admit  their  light.  Tush !  it  is  time  men  and  women  had 
outgrown  such  childish  conceits.  New  miracles,  ecstatic 


APPENDIX  B.  275 

prophets,  angel  visits,  or  bodiless  spirits  are  not  the  want ; 
the  want  is  an  eye  to  see,  and  an  ear  to  hear,  and  a  heart 
to  do  the  truth  we  have. 

C. — So  you  do  not  look,  with  Cavour,  for  a  new  re- 
ligion? 

R. — I  cannot  conceive  that  God  could  send  or  man  re- 
ceive a  better  religion  than  Jesus  has  given.  To  accept 
another  would  be  to  take  up  with  something  poorer  than 
we  already  have. 

C. — And  you  deny  that  Christianity  rests  on  miracles? 

R. — Shall  our  religion  rest  upon  the  report  of  what,  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  only  a  few  persons  of  one  genera- 
tion could  have  seen?  Shall  it  have  its  vital  evidence  in 
what  can  be  to  all  other  ages  only  a  tradition?  Infinite 
absurdity !  No !  Real  Christianity  rests  upon  its  own 
inherent,  self-evident,  eternal  truthfulness.  It  appeals  to 
"  that  light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into- 
the  world" — the  universal  reason  of  man-  It  has  its  home- 
witness  in  every  breast.  "  They  that  do  God's  will  know 
of  the  doctrine." 

C. — Do  you  deny  that  Jesus  wrought  miracles? 

R. — No.  Nor  do  I  deny  that  many  who  claim  to  do 
the  like  now  work  miracles.  I  do  not  pretend  to  know 
all  the  powers  hidden  in  heaven  and  earth,  nor  how  or  by 
whom  they  can  be  commanded.  Are  not  miracles  as  nu- 
merous, as  wonderful,  and  as  well  witnessed  to-day  as 
ever  before?  What  I  do  deny  is  that  the  universal  and 
perpetual  religion  of  humanity  does  or  can  rest  on  mira- 
cles. They  are  too  shallow.  They  belong,  I  repeat,  to 
the  world  of  phenomena,  to  the  sphere  of  the  senses. 
They  cannot  reveal  spiritual  truth,  nor  make  it  more 
clear,  nor  make  men  love  it.  When  the  friends  of  Chris- 


276  A  REASONABLE  CHRISTIANITY. 

tianity  shall  see  and  confess  this  fact,  and  call  the  diverted 
attention  of  men  from  the  incidents  to  the  essence  of  their 
religion,  we  may  hope  that  a  world,  growing  in  reason, 
will  listen  to  them. 

C. — But  absolute  truth  must  have  its  form  of  statement, 
and  united  worship  its  ritual,  however  simple.  Has  Jesus 
fixed  nothing  in  this  line  for  his  religion. 

R. — The  form  of  expression  varies  indefinitely,  the  sub- 
stance remains  the  same.  As  to  rites  of  worship,  love, 
the  most  unchangeable,  never  wants  to  go  a-courting  with 
set  phrase  or  studied  attitudes. 

C. — You  mean,  then,  that  Christianity  is  left  all  out- 
doors in  these  respects. 

R. — Fresh  air  is  healthful.  I  have  no  fear  that  my  re- 
ligion will  take  cold  from  such  exposure.  Christianity  is 
in  far  more  danger  of  becoming  feeble  and  sickly  from 
the  close  atmosphere  of  the  churches  and  creeds  than 
from  dwelling  under  the  open  sky  of  free  statement  and 
worship. 

C. — Truth  its  own  authority !  No  established  form  of 
worship!  Every  one  free  to  make  his  own  creed  and 
choose  his  own  ritual !  It  will  not  do.  Christianity  would 
dissolve  and  be  lost  in  the  immense  vacuum  of  such  lib- 
erty. 

R. — Try  it.  Leave  men  free  to  find  what  they  can, 
and  accept  the  good  they  find,  in  the  words  and  life  of. 
Jesus,  though  without  doubt  imperfectly  reported,  and 
they  will  discover  there  what  will  be,  simply  because  it 
is,  the  universal  and  perpetual  religion.  God  and  truth 
will  not  change. 


